


(baby won’t you please) run your fingers through my hair

by luninosity



Category: Actor RPF, Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM Scene, Belts, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Kink Negotiation, Love Confessions, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Research, Secrets, Sex Club, Spanking, True Love, mild breathplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:09:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2760833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can’t just Google sex dungeons,” Chris says, “even if it is for a role.” Sebastian says, “I might know a place.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I might know a place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OhCaptainMyCaptain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhCaptainMyCaptain/gifts).



> Only doing this out of affection, as ever; no disrespect to real people intended! 
> 
> Title from Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah),” though it was ALMOST “Talkin’ ’Bout My Baby,” so keep those in mind as the soundtrack...
> 
> Somewhat belated, but: happy birthday to a person who makes so many of us so very happy with wonderful stories! OhCaptainMyCaptain said, "can there be Evanstan porn?" and I said YES, YES THERE CAN. We'll get there. Not in chapter one, but we'll get there. :-)

Chris gets off the phone with his agent, and promptly panics.  
  
He’s said yes. He’s said yes to this role. He’s going to shed his good-guy Captain America image and take on a character who, well…  
  
There’s probably going to be leather. There’s certainly going to be himself spanking another person. There’s going to be himself falling into and exploring a BDSM relationship, on camera, and it’s a good film, a great film really, not cheap or demeaning but earnest art, about love and desire and tragedy and commitment and trust. He _wants_ to do this film; the script’s a romance at heart, edgy and funny and affectionate about the subject, and it’ll hopefully change the minds of everyone who thinks that _Fifty Shades of Grey_ is about healthy love.  
  
He’s just woefully horrifically absurdly unprepared to play anyone who knows anything about this sort of thing. The closest he’s ever got’s a past girlfriend who liked to be held down sometimes in bed. And he’d liked doing that too, he definitely had, but…  
  
But. Oh God. He’s committed now.  
  
He opens up the internet, realizes instantly that this is a mistake, slams his laptop shut, and collapses across his bed.  
  
Because he’s in his mother’s house, in his childhood bedroom, this attracts the attention of his mother’s radar ears, probably because the thump of his headboard against the wall is both audible and familiar. She wanders by, pauses outside the door with a heap of freshly-washed sheets in both arms, and inquires, “Everything okay in there?”  
  
No, Chris thinks, legs dangling off the end of the too-short mattress, staring at the white plainness of the ceiling. No, Mom, I’m going to have to learn how to give someone orders and wear, I don’t know, skintight pants and somehow sound authoritative and do intimate things on camera…  
  
He says, “Mom, I’m gonna have kinky sex for money.”  
  
Lisa Evans raises eyebrows, observes, “I hope they’re paying you well,” and comes in and plops the sheets onto his chest. The sheets are dryer-hot, and flowered in hideous purple hibiscus patterns. Chris wraps his arms around the heat, and heaves out an exhale.  
  
“Come help me put these on the guest bed,” his mother says, “your uncle’s coming over, and he hates flowers. Is this about the new film?”  
  
“Yeah.” He rolls to his feet, buries his face in sheet-cotton for a second, sighs. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”  
  
“Well,” she offers, calm and practical, “it’s a role, isn’t it? You know about research. Ask for advice.”  
  
“About this?”  
  
“Don’t listen to me if you don’t want to,” his mother comments, and tosses a pillow his way.  
  
Chris looks from pillow to pillowcase. The purple hibiscus flowers smirk at him. He might shove the pillow into them with more force than strictly necessary, at that.  
  
His mother’s not wrong. He needs advice. He tries poking around on the internet some more, but quickly gets overwhelmed and somewhat terrified, and backs off. He finds a few good resources—forums, blogs, a couple of social sites—and bookmarks them, but he feels a lot like a novice swimmer staring at ominous swells. He can’t just dive in. He’ll flail around and fuck up and drown.  
  
He needs a floatation device. And better metaphors. His current one’s not helping the imminent anxiety attack.   
  
What if he can’t do this role? What if he can’t do it justice? Everything he’s reading sounds so…profound. Intense. Powerful. He’s looking up contracts and bondage equipment and humiliation and pleasure, and all at once the enormity of the subject hits him, and he literally can’t breathe.  
  
People _love_ this. It’s about trust. And he’s going to have to get it _right_.  
  
He slips out of the house. Into the backyard. The stars’re emerging above, distant twinkling lights in the New England sky. The air tastes cool and clear when he breathes, like chilly silver on his tongue. The yard backs up to a row of trees; the branches murmur and whisper to each other, a life that’s got nothing to do with him or his distress, and that’s comforting. A little, anyway.  
  
He sits down on the top step of the porch, takes his phone out of his pocket, looks at the screen thoughtfully.  
  
He could. Here, under the far-off impersonal compassion of the universe, he could call.  
  
He does. He calls Sebastian.  
  
He’s not calling because he thinks for a minute that Sebastian’s going to _know_ BDSM terminology or meeting-places or how to swing a paddle for maximum impact. Hell, Sebastian’s the sweetest person Chris knows, the sweetest guy on the whole damn planet, made of saucer-eyes and baby-gazelle legs and unabashed enthusiasm about cheesesteaks and deep-space exploration. Sebastian’s too… _nice_ to know about this sort of thing, he decides, and he’s well aware that that’s making assumptions, but: _Sebastian_.  
  
Sebastian, he thinks, holding his phone. Sebastian’s got a wicked sense of humor once he feels comfortable enough to let it show, and Sebastian every time lets everyone else answer first in group interviews, and Sebastian’s beautiful and brave and kind in a way that Chris sometimes suspects stems from a childhood he doesn’t talk much about.   
  
Communism, that familiar voice’d said once, not comic books. And when I first got to America I had an accent, I was the headmaster’s stepson at my school, it got easier later but at first, well, I tried so hard to fit in…  
  
Chris has wanted more than once to say: you’re incredible, please never hide yourself around me, I love you.  
  
That’s true. He’s always tried to be honest with himself, and he can’t lie to his heart about this. He’s in love with Sebastian Stan. He wants to hear Sebastian’s voice in his ear when he’s scared or sick or nervous. He wants to hear Sebastian’s voice just because.  
  
He hasn’t always been in love. On the first _Captain America_ film he’d thought Sebastian was adorable, of course; not only adorable, but talented and professional and bashful and generous about sharing scenes and never standing in anyone’s light. They’d been friends. They’d gone their separate ways afterwards. They’d had separate lives.  
  
And then someplace around the announcement of the second film, in the first flush of excitement, Chris’d called to say hi and welcome back, and Sebastian’d answered, and they’d spent four hours on the phone debating everything from the best classic Disney movies to character motivations to the value of pineapple on pizza.   
  
Somehow after that they’d just kept on talking. Not every day, but close. The days when they don’t…  
  
Those feel a little less complete somehow.  
  
The filming of _The Winter Soldier_ ’d been a special kind of exercise in acting hell. Chris had wanted to kiss those curving lips so many times. Had wanted to pull Sebastian close in the laughing adrenaline-filled aftermath of fight scenes and cup that face with his hands and feel those slim muscles aligned with his.  
  
They’re still friends. They’ve gone out for drinks, stumbled tipsily through karaoke extravaganzas—Sebastian adores Billy Idol, and can be coaxed up on stage with enough vodka and someone else at his side—and spent quieter nights simply sprawled out in each other’s hotel suites watching Jim Carrey films, too tired and happy to speak or move.  
  
Sebastian picks up the phone almost instantly. As if he knows. “ _Alo?_ ”  
  
“You’re speaking Romanian at me again.”  
  
“Just for you. _Vehicolul meu pe pernă de aer e plin cu ţipari._ ”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My hovercraft is full of eels. Don’t tell me you don’t know Monty Python. What’s up?”  
  
I love you. I love you and your eels. No. “Um.”  
  
“Okay,” Sebastian says, sobering, voice generous and warm and immediately right there. “Talk to me.”  
  
“Oh God,” Chris says, and does. The whole damn story, while Sebastian listens. Everything pouring out like an incoherent flood. Terror and excitement and apprehension and determination and babbling words that bob around like corkscrews and probably don’t say at all what he needs them to.  
  
“…I don’t know what to do,” he trails off at last, steam running low. “Like, I want this to be good, y’know? Accurate. But where do I even…I can’t just, like, Google sex…dungeons? Sex clubs? Can I? Would firsthand experience be better? I mean, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to call them.”  
  
Sebastian’s quiet for long enough that Chris’s heart plummets. Oh God, oh God, he’s finally strained their friendship to the snapping point, they’ve had some truly bizarre conversations but kinky sex resources aren’t exactly a usual topic, what if Sebastian hates even the thought, what if Sebastian hates him, Sebastian totally hates him—  
  
Sebastian says, “I might know a place.”  
  
Chris, not understanding, can only stupidly echo, “A place?” And then his brain catches up and kicks him in the gut. “You—wait, _what?_ ”  
  
“I know someplace.” Sebastian sounds entirely unruffled. As if he hasn’t just flipped Chris’s personal world up and down and sideways. “I’ve not been there in years, mind you. For all I know it’s become a kosher deli. You’ll have to come to New York; I’ll need to take you.”  
  
“You…know a… _place_.”  
  
“Are we still having this conversation? Yes, Chris, I do.”   
  
“But,” Chris splutters. “Are you sure?”  
  
Sebastian sighs. The sound echoes windily over the phone. Chris can’t read the tone, and wishes futilely for the superhuman ability to fly across the mobile connection and discover the expression in winter-lake eyes. “You don’t know everything about me. I never expected to be letting you know this. But you clearly need help.”  
  
“I do,” Chris agrees, not offended. “What don’t I know? Come on, you can tell me, you’ve seen me drunk off my ass, you’ve seen me having fuckin’ anxiety attacks in the men’s room at our London premiere, you got me water and told me I’d be okay, you can tell me anything _ever_.”  
  
“You’ll find out,” Sebastian says, “inevitably, once we’re there. Don’t worry. When would you like to come up?”  
  
They settle on the weekend after next. Chris wants with a truly alarming amount of want to ask again—what isn’t Sebastian telling him? was Sebastian never planning to tell him? why does Sebastian know things about sex dungeons?—but hears that tone again, liquid-smoke accent like New York layered over fairytale hills. Doors slamming shut in those hills. You’ll find out when we’re there. Don’t worry; don’t ask.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
“Should I…bring…anything?”  
  
Affectionate, amused: “Only yourself. I’ll make a call or two. They’ll expect us. I’ll see you in two weeks.”  
  
“Ten days,” Chris says, because accuracy’s important, because ten days is a lot less than fourteen with Sebastian at the other end. “Did I interrupt you? What were you doing, anyway, before I called?”  
  
“Having wild animal sex with Neil deGrasse Tyson on my sofa. In fact I was being entirely boring. Looking up videos about black holes on YouTube and contemplating a Starbucks trip. Terribly thrilling, I know.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Chris says. “Sounds…nice. Not the animal sex part, because ow, my brain. But the rest.” It does sound nice. Sebastian curled up on his sofa, surrounded by science and science-fiction, sipping hazelnut or cinnamon or raspberry coffee and being warmed through and through.  
  
That image warms Chris through and through too. Despite the shivers of the winter backyard and the open sky.  
  
He adds, “And also you’re the fuckin’ opposite of boring. Tell me about black holes.”  
  
“Here,” Sebastian says, “I’ll send you a link, this one’s all about what would happen to your body if you fell in, and how you’d basically turn into spaghetti made out of atoms—”  
  
“Spaghetti? Are there hyperdimensional meatballs?”   
  
The stars glitter cheerfully above. The trees rustle. Chris leans against the post of the closest porch rail, listening to Sebastian talk about singularities and time dilation, and feels the knot of tension in his chest ebb away. Time could slow down, he thinks, could stop right here, and he’d be just fine forever with this voice beside him.  
  
He wonders again, briefly, about those unanswered questions. Sebastian’d said he’d find out. Ten days. And then he’ll know. He’ll go to a…place…with Sebastian, and he’s trying not to think about that, about sex and corsets and whips and handcuffs and Sebastian’s lovely eyes and secrets. Sebastian must have…friends, right, who know the scene. That’s got to be what it is. Friends. Who’ll show them around. Yeah.  
  
Ten days, he thinks, and closes his eyes, and asks a question about gravity and falling.


	2. where everybody knows your name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chris and Sebastian go out for the evening, and certain revelations occur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're getting worried about Sebastian's untold story--as Chris is--note the warnings that are NOT in play on this story, please. 
> 
> One more chapter to go.

Chris, when heading out from his mom’s place, makes sure to call Sebastian before getting on the road. This is not strictly so that Sebastian’ll have a time frame. There are other reasons, at least two.  
  
Sebastian, who is thoroughly and emphatically the opposite of a morning person, answers the phone with “Mphgl?” followed by several untranslatable obscenities. Chris says brightly, “Good morning, I’m on the way!” and Sebastian yawns loudly enough to be heard several states away and mutters, “I don’t even know you. Who are you? Go away. Bring me Starbucks.”  
  
“Bring you Starbucks _and_ go away?”  
  
“I hate you so much,” Sebastian grumbles. Chris’s heart breaks some more. One more hairline fracture.  
  
He’s used to it. He’s smiling regardless: Sebastian’s perfect in the morning, half-awake and rumpled and annoyed as a kitten jostled out of a nap. A private cherished kind of heartbreak, that one.  
  
Sebastian yawns again. “I don’t actually hate you. Where are you? You’re not here already…”  
  
“I’m in Boston,” Chris says patiently. “Where I’m coming from. Where I’m sitting in the driveway and leaving now.”  
  
Sebastian thinks about this for a minute. “Oh. So…you’re not yet here.”  
  
“It’ll be a couple hours,” Chris assists. “And _then_ I’ll be there.”  
  
“I need coffee.”  
  
“Yeah. You do.” I love you, I love you, I love you. “Want anything else? I should warn you I come bearing lasagna. My mom thinks you’re looking too thin.”  
  
“People keep saying that. I don’t know why.”  
  
“Because you’re too thin?” Chris flips on the radio. The car’s icy, snow-promises filling up the New England morning. Classic rock purrs back at him, Journey singing their hearts out about devotion and faithfulness and life on the road. Sebastian _has_ been looking thin. Not unhealthy, not sick, but Chris wants to sit on him and force-feed him chocolate cheesecake for a while. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be there in a few hours.”  
  
“You just called to wake me up and play Steve Perry vocals at me,” Sebastian inquires, “didn’t you?”  
  
Because I wanted to hear your voice, to hear you being drowsy and confused and adorable at me, to pretend we were waking up together. “Pretty much, yep.”  
  
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Sebastian says darkly. “Also that you’re bringing me Starbucks.”  
  
Cute? But—no, no, this is Sebastian mostly asleep and saying random words. Chris knows that. He tries to inform his heart, but it refuses to listen. “Don’t you have a fancy thing that makes coffee? Don’t you have three different fancy things that make coffee?”  
  
“I—” Sebastian hesitates. “Never mind. You don’t have to bring me Starbucks. You don’t have to—you know you don’t, right, I didn’t mean I was expecting that.”  
  
And something lurches or skips or falls away; something Chris can’t quite place, some nebulous emotion in that fluid voice, a twist he’s not expecting. Like the bottom dropping out of an elevator, like a stairstep giving way just after he’d put his foot down on it.  
  
“What do you want from Starbucks?” he tries.  
  
“You’re right,” Sebastian says instead of answering, “I do have fancy things that make coffee, and I should get up properly and make use of them. And gym. Shower. Email my agent. Call me when you get close, okay?”  
  
“Please,” Chris says. The next steps aren’t getting any more solid. No landing in sight. Only more horrible falling. “Peppermint, raspberry, hazelnut, extra chocolate, what?”  
  
“Oh…no, it’s fine. Please don’t. You’re already driving all the way here.” Noises, rustles, the sweep of fabric. Chris bites his lip, sitting in his cold car, picturing Sebastian swinging long legs out of bed. “I’ll pick up sandwiches from that deli you like; it’ll be about lunchtime when you get here. Sound good?”  
  
“Um. Sure.”  
  
“Okay. I’ll see you soon, then. Stay warm in that car. Especially if it’s snowing.”  
  
“Sebastian—”  
  
He’d thought Sebastian’d hung up, but there’s a pause, and then a quiet, “Chris?”  
  
“I was going to offer anyway,” Chris says. “About the Starbucks. Before you said it.”  
  
And Sebastian breathes out, halfway between a sigh and a laugh, complex and imbued with shifting undercurrents. “Of course you were. My hero.”  
  
“Hey, Captain America can bring you coffee. Captain America wants to bring you coffee.” So much. So, so much.  
  
He’d be a hero for Sebastian. If Sebastian wanted that. If Sebastian wanted him.  
  
But he’s not Steve Rogers. He’s Chris Evans. Chris Evans isn’t anybody’s fantasy.  
  
Chris Evans gets anxiety attacks and loves dogs and pizza and beer; Chris Evans never went to college and knows nothing about manly things like cars and motorbikes but way too much about _The Little Mermaid_. Chris Evans is in love with his co-star and good friend, a friend who’s agreed to help him out with this role.  
  
Sebastian’s kind and reserved and funny and fantastically radiantly beautiful inside and out, beautiful like a myth, too breathtaking to be anything but a fairytale. Sebastian’s had a life that’s infinitely more complicated than Chris’s Boston-boy cheerful family whirlwind, and Chris knows there’re stories he doesn’t know.  
  
He can’t make any demands. Not now. Not ever.  
  
His heart hurts again, but he’s used to that. He welcomes it: he’s doing it for Sebastian’s sake, holding all that inside.  
  
“Captain America,” Sebastian muses, sidetracked by the image, “at a Starbucks…he’d try everything on the menu, of course. Never backing down from a challenge.”  
  
“And he’d bring it all home for Bucky, too.”  
  
“I believe I’ve seen art to that effect on the internet somewhere. Shouldn’t you be getting on the road? It looks as if there might be traffic shortly ahead of you.”  
  
“Are you looking up my route?”  
  
“Well, yes.”  
  
“God, you’re fantastic,” Chris says, and then smacks himself on the forehead, a literal face-palm if there ever was one. Words out loud, versus words in his head. He does know the difference.  
  
Sebastian laughs. “Do you say that to everyone who promises to take you to a kinky sex club? I’ll make pizza tonight. With all the meat, yes, I did go shopping.”  
  
“Did you just say…kinky sex club…plus…all the meat?”  
  
“Oh, God, yes,” Sebastian says, and promptly absolutely cracks up, and Chris listens in delight because Sebastian laughing at his own inadvertent sex jokes is the best sound ever. “Italian sausage. Extra spicy…”  
  
“Hand-tossed dough?” Chris contributes, just to keep him laughing. “Or something about sauce…”  
  
“All the terrible puns about choosing your favorite topping. All right, get on the road, I’ll see you soon.”  
  
“Napkins might be important,” Chris says, “for clean-up,” and gets off the phone grinning like an idiot, content with the knowledge that he’s just made the secret love of his life laugh hard enough to fall off the bed.  
  
He gets on the road. Drives. Sebastian and a kinky sex club and homemade pizza await him at the other end. The weather seems to be encouraging this outcome; at least, the skies stay brilliantly clear and beckoning throughout the drive. Barely any traffic. Open roads. Leading toward his destination.  
  
He makes excellent time and turns up early and doesn’t bother to call, just takes Sebastian’s parking spot in the building’s lot—Sebastian doesn’t have a car in any case, and Chris has been here enough to not bother to ask which spot—and runs up the stairs and knocks. Sebastian lives in an older but renovated building, clean modern lines and simple walls and high ceilings and space; it’s got a to-die-for city view and a supposed turn-of-the-century ghost dwelling in the apartment directly above. Sebastian seems unbothered by this. Chris thinks that the ghost would likely fall in incorporeal love with cool delighted blue-grey eyes too, the second it encountered Sebastian.  
  
Who opens the door wearing faded jeans and a cloud-hued sweater and shower-messy hair and a startled expression. “You did go to Starbucks.”  
  
“Not like it was a fuckin’ hardship,” Chris says, “there’s one across the street.”  
  
“Yes, but…you bought…four drinks…and a pastry.”  
  
“You wouldn’t tell me what you wanted. Chestnut praline, peppermint mocha, peppermint mocha in frappuccino form, regular coffee with extra sugar. And a cake pop. Um. Pink-flavored.”  
  
Sebastian stares at him, shakes that head—his hair’s still drying, and a single drop of water slides down to the corner of his eyebrow, leaving a shining stripe of wet skin—and says, “Pink is not a flavor. Chestnut praline?”  
  
“I think it’s new.” He holds it out. Sebastian looks as if the war between further protest and acceptance is being reluctantly decided in favor of nutty sugary holiday caffeine.  
  
“Go on,” Chris says helpfully, “it’ll be sad if you don’t drink it, it knows it’s meant for that, if you say no you’re denying it its purpose in life.”  
  
“Oh, _sugi pula,_ ” Sebastian retorts, but takes the cup anyway, which Chris counts as a win. “Blow me, before you ask. More or less. Throw your bag anywhere. You can have the bed, of course.”  
  
“Nope. You try that every time.” Sebastian’s place has one proper bedroom, and one fold-out couch. It’s not an unfriendly couch. “Your place, your bed.”  
  
“Which means I get to decide who’s sleeping in it.” Sebastian pointedly picks up his overnight bag and carries it off that direction and comes back, all while Chris remains stuck on the image of Sebastian deciding on another person to invite into that bed. “We’ve got a few hours. Food, Disney movies, old Star Trek episodes?”  
  
“All of the above,” Chris concurs immediately, and that’s how they end up spending the next few hours, flopped across Sebastian’s voluminous sofa, devouring foot-long pastrami sandwiches and singing along with _The Lion King_ and analyzing Captain Kirk’s fighting technique. Sebastian tries to imitate one of the kicks, trips over his coffee table, and ends up sprawled across Chris’s lap, laughing; Chris, when he tries to get up, pokes his shoulder and says “Vulcan nerve pinch, you can’t move,” and puts on the _Deep Space Nine_ episode about time-travel and tribbles.  
  
Sebastian must forget to try to get up again, because he leaves his head pillowed on Chris’s thigh, distracted by science-fictional imagined futures. Chris swallows around the sudden lump in his throat, and lets his hand rest on Sebastian’s hair as if he’s forgotten it there, absentminded. Couldn’t be further from true, with the way his pulse’s racing; nothing absent at all about the warmth of Sebastian’s head in his lap, the exhale of each breath.  
  
But they’re friends. And Sebastian is miraculously astonishingly comfortable around Chris, usual reserve cracking open to show glimpses of holiday coffee and exuberance about animated lions and merry debates over starship captain negotiating tactics. Sebastian lets him in. Chris can’t betray that trust by wanting more.  
  
He’s not really watching the episode. Maybe Sebastian is; he’s afraid to glance down and check. He’s looking at the television, and thinking about the softness of Sebastian’s dark hair beneath his palm, his fingertips.  
  
After the episode ends, the silence lingers, unbroken. Outside the lights of New York City’re coming on, a giddy symphony of topaz and garnet and emerald written in neon glee. They hum and sing and beat with possibility.  
  
Netflix informs them that the next episode’s about to start. Sebastian sighs—he is paying attention, then—and sits up and flicks the tv off. “Pizza. And then we should change, and then we can go.”  
  
Chris almost doesn’t want to. Chris, obediently helping Sebastian pile meat atop tomato sauce and cheese, wants to come back to the couch and ease Sebastian back into his lap and stay right there forever.  
  
He puts another pepperoni on. Sebastian’s doing this for him. For the role.  
  
Sebastian, while not a gourmet chef, is leaps and bounds better than Chris, whose family readily tells horror stories about himself and the single venture at Christmas cookies. Sebastian owns a pizza stone and narrates things about oven temperature variations and how someday he’d like to attempt a Thanksgiving turkey. Chris nods, and sighs internally, and smiles.  
  
There aren’t a ton of dishes, but he offers to do them anyway. Sebastian narrows eyes at him—“You’re my guest!”—and they have a good-natured scuffle over a plate that ends with Chris throwing everything into the sink and then standing in front of it, arms crossed. Sebastian pokes his left shoulder, testing.  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Still stronger than you. You even said so.”  
  
“But I—”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“You said you needed to change,” Chris suggests. “Go change.”  
  
“So do you. Ah…I should’ve asked…what did you bring?”  
  
“Um. Clothes?”  
  
“Clothes,” Sebastian mutters, but he’s grinning, one corner of his mouth curving up in that enchanting smile. “Fine. I’ll be quick; your stuff’s in the bedroom anyway.”  
  
“It doesn’t have to be.”  
  
“I’m letting you do my dishes. You get the bed.”  
  
“I’m not sure that’s fair,” Chris starts to argue, but Sebastian’s vanished down the hall with definitive alacrity.  
  
He eyes the plates in the sink. The topmost streak of tomato sauce is grinning at him. He scrubs it away with industrious vengeance.  
  
Sebastian’s in the bathroom, having closed that door but left the bedroom door open, when Chris ventures that way. This is disappointing on at least two levels, one practical and clothing-guide related and one extremely personal and full of awareness that the bedroom’d just been occupied by bare Romanian skin. Chris shoves those thoughts resolutely down, and opens his bag.  
  
He proceeds to immediately have a minor breakdown over options—sleeveless shirt? tight jeans? should he run out and somehow buy a mesh shirt? should he own leather pants? why doesn’t he own leather pants? is that trying too hard?—and finally just goes with stylish jeans and a tight-knit clinging white Henley, form-fitting and open at the collar and showing a hint of tattoo. Sebastian’ll tell him if he’s picked something inappropriate. He trusts Sebastian.  
  
He yells, “Come in and help me!”  
  
Sebastian opens the door wearing tight black jeans and a soft flowing green-blue shirt and a black jacket. Chris feels reassured by this evidence of normality, and then belatedly realizes that that flowing shirt is impressively transparent.  
  
Sebastian raises eyebrows at him. “If you’re wondering about clothing, you should be fine. It’s not a strict dress code, and especially not if you’re not playing.”  
  
“Huh? Oh…” He actually had temporarily stopped wondering. Attention diverted by the outline of barely-discernable nipples under the marvelous shirt. He wants to discern them. With his tongue. “Um. Yeah. Sorry. What?”  
  
“Hmm.” Sebastian’s gaze sweeps up and down, assessing. Chris would swear that those eyes linger on certain areas, but then Chris would also admit to his own wishful thinking playing a role in that perception. “You look good.”  
  
“I do? I mean…thanks?”  
  
“You do.” Sebastian’s smiling very faintly. Inwardly directed, and private, and with a hint of some other emotion in the aged-glass labyrinths of those eyes. “Just relax. No one’s expecting anything from you.”  
  
“But,” Chris explains despairingly, “I don’t own leather pants.”  
  
Sebastian raises an eyebrow, competent and unruffled. “I do, as it happens. But I’m not going to ask about your thought process on this one. You’re fine, Chris. I promise.”  
  
“Well,” Chris says, meeting his gaze, letting that blue become his focal point, his anchor, “if you say so.”  
  
“I do. Want a drink? Beer? Vodka? Anything?”  
  
“Um. No?” Alcohol won’t help. Might be liquid courage, but he’ll end up saying something utterly moronic by the end of the night, for instance something about how much he’d really like to peel Sebastian out of those leg-hugging black jeans. “When, um…when should we…”  
  
“We can go now, if you’re ready.”  
  
Chris isn’t ready, might not ever be ready. But there’s a wry sweetness to Sebastian’s crooked smile, and Chris thinks abruptly again of that voice saying, I’ve not been there in years…  
  
Sebastian might not be ready either. The competence isn’t an act—of the two of them, Sebastian’s clearly the one who knows what they’re doing—but it is a disguise.  
  
“We don’t have to,” he says, very softly, as they stand together in Sebastian’s bedroom doorway under pensive golden lamplight.  
  
And Sebastian’s smile unfurls further, understanding. “Come on. I’m sort of looking forward to this in any case; it’s been a while…”  
  
“Only sort of?”  
  
Sebastian grins, lifts and drops a shoulder: a shrug. “ _Da._ ”  
  
“Speaking Romanian again,” Chris notes, and Sebastian says right back, “You enjoy it,” and the universe shakes itself back into alignment like a large happy dog coming home.  
  
They take a cab. Sebastian gives the driver an address Chris doesn’t recognize; it turns out to be in a very upscale high-powered section of the City, not hipster-trendy but serenely aware of its established prestige and money and history. The building looks like any other building, possibly an elegant and tastefully discreet sort of hotel. Might host ambassadors. Diplomats. Senators. The night glitters idly, onyx and old bones.  
  
“It doesn’t have a name.” Sebastian leads him up a short staircase to a thoroughly unassuming door, which opens. Behind this door is a short hallway, and another door. “But anyone who knows where it is…well, we know where it is.”  
  
“We?”  
  
“Hi,” Sebastian says to the heavyset scowl guarding the inner door. “You’re new, aren’t you?”  
  
“Been here six months,” the man says. “And you two aren’t exactly incognito, and you look like you’re about seventeen, kid, no offense. You sure you know where you are?”  
  
“Yes.” Sebastian leans casually against the wall, one-shouldered and lazy. “Chace is expecting us.”  
  
“Sometimes people say they know people just to get in.”  
  
Sebastian flashes a genuinely amused smile. “Call him. Tell him Sebastian’s here.”  
  
Chris mutters, “This feels like a spy novel…”  
  
Sebastian laughs.  
  
The doorman conducts a hasty mobile-phone conversation, and upon conclusion of such gazes at Sebastian with the sort of awe Chris normally associates with the most avid fans at conventions. “…you’re him? The actual—seriously? You’re _him?_ ”  
  
“You’re who?” Chris asks, ignored.  
  
“Oh my God,” the doorman squeaks, practically jumping up and down. Muscles in motion like continental drift. “Are you back, are you actually available, are you here for some kind of—is it like a special night or—I never saw you, of course not, I wasn’t here then, but I heard—they tell stories about you, man!”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian murmurs. “I imagine they do. Wristbands, please.”  
  
The doorman’s face falls with comic haste. “You’re not playing? Not with anyone?”  
  
“Observing only. And only for tonight.” Sebastian peels himself off the lazy wall and wiggles fingers. “Come on—what’s your name, by the way?”  
  
“Tom,” the doorman says mournfully. “Are you sure? Fuck, man, the way they talk about the thing with you and the ice-cubes and the—no? Okay, okay. Here.” And, handing over red silk, “At least I got to meet you, man. You made my night. My whole _year_.”  
  
Chris accepts a wristband when Sebastian holds it his direction. He’d been half-expecting something cheap, closer to a concert or fairground disposable piece. But this is sophisticated. Dark crimson silk, tightly braided, and it falls over his skin like water.  
  
Sebastian smiles a fraction, watching his face. “We do things with style. Or we always did, and I’m guessing that hasn’t changed. No one’ll proposition you while you’re wearing that; if you decide you want to play with anyone, take it off.”  
  
Chris is approximately two hundred percent sure he’s in way over his head, and he’s not going to play, if that’s the word, with _anyone_. He says, “Are you famous or something? Also, ice-cubes?”  
  
“We’re both famous,” Sebastian retorts, “we’re actors,” which is not an answer at all. Chris glares. Sebastian smiles sweetly.  
  
Tom the doorman vows, sincerely, “It’s an honor to meet you.”  
  
Sebastian sighs—a little ruefully, Chris thinks, but not without appreciation—and smiles again, and leans in. Whispers something in the man’s ear.  
  
Tom’s eyes get huge. Awed.  
  
Sebastian nods.  
  
Tom waves a hand feebly at the inner door and gulps out, “Go on…”  
  
Sebastian grabs Chris’s hand. They go.  
  
“What’d you say to him?”  
  
“You really don’t want to know.”  
  
“You know how you said there were things I didn’t know about you? You want to tell me any of those things, any time soon?”  
  
Sebastian stops walking, in the doorway. Chris can’t see much past his head. “I told him that he was very kind, and that he’s obviously a considerate person given how he tried to make sure we knew what we were in for, and that if I _were_ planning to pick a partner for the night—which I’m not—I’d be inclined to let him try the thing with the ice-cubes on me again. Happy?”  
  
“No! _What_ thing with the ice-cubes?”  
  
This question’s interrupted by the exuberant arrival of a human ball of eagerness and glittery eyeliner. “Sebastian! Oh my God!”  
  
Sebastian suffers himself to be swept into a very forward hug. “Hi, Chace.”  
  
Chace keeps on hugging. Chris shifts weight, out of his depth and aware of it. He peeks around the room instead of intruding on the affection.  
  
It’s…not what he’d been expecting. Which he no doubt should’ve expected. But, despite all the reading, deep down he’d apparently been unconsciously clinging to preconceptions about shadows and furtiveness and sordid whip-cracks.  
  
There are a few whip-cracks happening. Moans and gasps hovering in the air. But this place is…  
  
… _inviting_ might be the word. Classy. Unabashed and constructed for unblinking indulgence.  
  
Deep blue walls, refined lines, gilded topaz light like a warm beckoning. Spotlessly clean floors. Racks of equipment, tidily arranged and labeled, gleaming wood and dark-hued leather. A low stage at the back, unoccupied. Alcoves for semi-privacy, several of which _are_ being happily occupied. There’s a slender pale girl up on what Chris’s research suggests might be a St Andrew’s cross, and there’s a spanking-bench over there—the sounds echo, as does the quiet “more…”—and a boy on a leash curled up at an older man’s feet and looking perfectly dreamily content…  
  
Chris realizes he’s watching the spanking. The impacts, the red marks over fair skin. The man on the receiving end moans again, and his partner leans over and kisses him, murmuring a question, getting a nod; it’s a moment so strangely and unbearably intimate that Chris feels like an intruder. His fingers tingle, and his face flames, and he pulls his gaze away.  
  
The hugging’s mostly over. Chris feels a sudden absurd sweep of jealousy, and he knows it is jealousy, washing through his bones. Sebastian’d hugged _him_ earlier, sure. But not like this.  
  
And then he notices just how hard Chace seems to be holding on, like all the relief in the universe’s concentrated into that grip. And then his brain jumps to the memory of the doorman’s voice: are you back, are you coming back, is it a special night…  
  
Coming _back?_  
  
After…having left…?  
  
After having left for years?

“Oh, wow.” Chace steps back—running hands up and down Sebastian’s arms as if making certain of tangibility—and laughs. “Wow, man. Welcome back. You look good.”  
  
“Thank you—”  
  
“Are you here with someone? Or meeting someone?” Chace glances at Chris curiously, dismisses him as a nonparticipant, and returns that whirlwind attention to Sebastian. “Are you seriously back? I couldn’t believe it when you called, I know you said it was a one-time thing and you were just observing but I sort of cleared the night anyway, we’ve got the stage open, we could do a surprise exhibition, it’d be awesome, everybody’d go crazy, doesn’t have to be with me, anyone you want—”  
  
Sebastian holds up his hand. Does a little beauty-pageant wave. The wristband flickers crimson in the compassionate light.  
  
Chace looks instantly tremendously distressed. “Please say you’re just fucking with me.”  
  
“No, sorry.” Sebastian offers a complicated sort of eyebrow-shrug-plus-commiserative-smile. “You know I don’t. Not anymore.”  
  
And Chace’s expression changes. “Yeah. Okay. I—yeah. What do you need, then?”  
  
“Wait a fucking _minute,_ ” Chris says. That expression, that _not anymore_. “Okay, someone want to fill me in?”  
  
Chace stares at Sebastian, then at Chris, then at Sebastian again. “You didn’t tell him?”  
  
Sebastian runs a hand through his hair. Sheepish. “I never knew how! I couldn’t just say—well. You can. If you want.”  
  
“Sebastian’s a fucking legend around this place,” Chace explains, given this permission. “Like, seriously unbelievable. Like—I don’t even know. He’s so damn good—he’s the best submissive, like, _ever_ , like the sweetest, most obedient, most fucking _responsive_ —was it Chris Egan who got you off without even touching you, on stage, that time? Just putting you down, you on your knees wearing his collar, and he told you to come, and you—”  
  
“How is Chris,” Sebastian says vaguely, looking out at the moving scene, not looking at any person in particular.  
  
“He’s great. He misses you. Come on, nobody else is you.” Back to Chris: “He’s not just good like that. He’s good, like, _responsible_ good, one hundred percent safe and sane and consensual, safewords if he has to, none of that bullshit about trying to prove he can take too much, even though he can take just about anything anyway…he checks over all the equipment, and he used to totally give advice to nervous subs—hell, nervous Doms too, I once saw him talk a first-time Dom through a first-time flogging, and the kid left practically walking on air. When I say he was good…”  
  
“I get it.” Chris’s heart aches. Too many colliding emotions, sharp and ominous and dreadful. “Was?”  
  
Chace hesitates. Throws an honestly concerned glance at Sebastian. The echo of that grip from earlier. “That’s not my story to tell, man.”  
  
“I can hear you worrying,” Sebastian says, coming back to the present, “and it’s not that kind of story. I’m fine, Chris. No one hurt me.”  
  
Chris puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure?”  
  
Sebastian looks up at him. Those winter-blue eyes are very clear, truthful and open and sincere as bluebells in rain. “Yes. I promise.”  
  
Chace looks from the hand to Sebastian’s face to Chris’s face, and chirps, “Are you _sure_ you’re not up for a scene? With each other?”  
  
“Oh shit—” Chris jerks the hand away. His cheeks’re scarlet. He can feel it. “Was that like—a thing? Did I do some sort of—secret signal thing? Sorry!”  
  
“ _Secret signal thing,_ ” Chace says, and doubles over laughing.  
  
Sebastian sighs, shaking his head, though he’s smiling a little too. “No, you’re fine. You can touch me. Or the idiot currently next to me. Don’t touch anyone’s sub without permission, of course. But you’re just…being friendly…and I know you touch people all the time. It’s okay.”  
  
Chris’s overactive imagination hears the pause before and after the bit about being friendly. Instantly goes to work overanalyzing, studying, trying to determine what that infinitesimal breath-catch might mean.  
  
Shut up, he grumbles at his imagination, we know he didn’t mean it like _that_. “I can touch you, then. But you’re a…I mean, you…”  
  
“If you asked me, I would tell you that I am submissive, and I am _a_ submissive—practicing, doing scenes, identifying as such—or I was. But assuming for a minute that I still am, I’m not here with anyone, so you’re not stepping on anyone’s toes, and I’m free to walk away from you or signal one of the monitors if I don’t like your approach.” Sebastian grins. “I also have masochistic tendencies, which means I can and do enjoy pain, in erotic contexts, though it’s not a requirement. Primarily I like being dominated. Being owned. Chace, on the other hand—”

Chace waves.

“—is more of a sadist than anything else, although a very sweet one—”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. —which means he likes inflicting erotic pain, seeing how much someone can take, watching them break apart for him—but he’d get bored if I simply wanted to sit at his feet and be petted. We’re not an ideal match, but we have worked together well enough in the past. We’re friends, and we’re both willing to be flexible; we’ve even gotten on stage for a few exhibitions.”

“It’s really mostly you,” Chace inserts at this point. His voice is affectionate, with a hint of sadness. “You work well with everybody. You make us all better. Or—you _made_ us better. Fuck. Sorry.”

Sebastian sends a look over that way. It’s an answer to the boundless affection, returned in kind. Chris tries not to look at anything in particular. He’s the interloper here. Even if they _are_ willing to teach him. And they have a history he’s not permitted to share.

But Sebastian turns the smile on him, then. And Chris can’t help being soothed. “Relax. You wanted to know; we can help. Chace, you can help too. Get us drinks.”

Chace ushers them to the small bar in the far corner. This, like everything else, is upscale and well-maintained and unpretentious. “…drinks?” Chris asks, because he’s pretty sure that alcohol and BDSM could be a dismaying mix if done wrong.  
  
“All non-alcoholic,” Chace says, getting out orange juice and what seems to be grenadine, “up here. We do have an actual bar in the basement—some people need a shot or two before they get the courage to try, but we have a strict policy about throwing out the drunk ones before anything can go wrong. This bar’s for aftercare. Water, juice, snacks, stuff like that. Sebastian, here you go, disgustingly sweet as usual. You _and_ the drink.”  
  
Sebastian bats eyes, playful and flirtatious in a way that only a very few people’re ever privileged to see. Chris has always counted himself fortunate to be among that group. “Thank you.”  
  
“Evans, preference?”  
  
“Not, um, sweet…juice is fine…is this…your place?”  
  
“He’s a part owner,” Sebastian says, perching on a bar stool, long legs stretched negligently out. It’s wholly unconscious art. Chris takes a sip of orange juice to conceal his staring. Sebastian goes on, “A lot of…theater people, actors, people with reputations to lose…come here. It’s safe. Nobody’s going to talk. Invitation only, and people we trust.”  
  
“You keep saying we,” Chace notes. “You are totally always part of the we, no matter what, no debate on that, but I’m gonna ask again, are you planning to be around more? People will want to know.”  
  
“Oh…probably not, no.” Sebastian looks into his glass as he says it, at voiceless streaks of cherry-pink and yellow. “But Chris needs some input. For a role.”  
  
“Ah.” Chace props elbows on the bar. Waves at the room, at the scents of leather and sweat and sex and gentle sandalwood and vanilla. “Okay. We do let people observe if they’re curious, obviously, that’s a house rule, but we don’t let journalists or researcher-types in, and we will find out if you go around talking specifically about this place. Sebastian says you’re cool—in fact, Sebastian says you’re pretty much a matchless example of human perfection—”  
  
Sebastian, without appearing to move, manages to flick drops of condensation from his glass at Chace’s face.  
  
“—so you’re welcome to hang out, talk to people, whatever, but if you’re a dick we _will_ toss you out, clear?”  
  
“Yeah,” Chris says. His brain’s inquiring: Sebastian said what, again? Matchless? About me? “Yes. Um. Clear.”  
  
“Want a tour?”  
  
“Um…just tell me for now. I mean, I don’t think we’re getting too extreme for this film, it’s still gotta be stuff we can screen at festivals and all, and I think they’re hiring some kind of sex expert consultant, but…”  
  
“No substitute for actually coming in and looking around. Yep.” Chace finds more orange juice. Hands Sebastian a single chocolate-chip cookie. Sebastian says, “Chace, be nice,” and breaks it in half and gives Chris the other piece, at which point Chris understands that there’s a whole other silent conversation happening that he’s not privy to.  
  
He takes the half and eats it even though he really isn’t big on dessert foods. Sebastian’s sharing it with him.  
  
Sebastian’s eyes dance appreciatively. Chris grins at him; can’t not, when Sebastian’s happy. Chace sighs.  
  
“Okay, so, we try to limit actual nudity and full-on sex in the public areas, we’ve got private rooms upstairs for that, set up with whatever your kinky heart desires. Obviously orgasms happen, people get off down here, from being flogged or flogging or whatever, and we’re totally in favor of that, it’s all good, but we try to keep some level of decorum around the shared space. The stage is for exhibitions and performances; sometimes demonstrations, like shibari, suspension, bullwhips, or sometimes just informational sessions about proper care of your toys, by which I mean both the kind you borrow from our shelves and the people who like being called that. We only use our own equipment; we know that’s in good shape. Seb, am I missing anything?”  
  
“You’ve covered most of it.” Sebastian’s watching a skinny red-haired Domme with a flogger. Even Chris can tell she’s nervous; she’s swinging in jerky ineffective motions, and the man tied to the whipping post keeps looking back with both affection and dissatisfaction. “It’s a club, this place, not exactly a business; there’re a few professional employees and most people pay the membership fees that go to upkeep and such, but everyone here knows everyone, at least by reputation. Chace, excuse me for a sec. Go let him hold a cane or a paddle or a hairbrush; I’ll meet you back here.”  
  
“And you said you weren’t,” Chace says, with fondness. “Go handle it.”  
  
Sebastian slips off the barstool and heads that way, soundless and long-legged as a lynx. Chris watches him move, watches the casual way he nods at a blonde girl wearing a body-hugging shiny black dress, watches him pick his way around dangling restraints and a chair; swallows as Sebastian’s fingertips brush the chair-back…  
  
“You,” Chace observes, “want him.”  
  
Chris freezes. Heart dropping to his toes. And knows instantly that the reaction’s given him away.  
  
“Don’t feel bad.” Chace comes out from behind the bar. “Lots of people do. And a few extremely lucky people have gotten to play with him. But you…you don’t just want that, do you? I mean, you do, I know that look, you’re thinking that a lot of things make sense all of a sudden and you’re imagining how he’d feel bent over your knee, am I right? But there’s more.”  
  
“I love him,” Chris says. His mouth tastes like orange juice and hopelessness. His stomach hurts. The night’s bizarre and wonderful and painfully upsetting, twisting his entire world around. Sebastian, this place, that untold story. Every word’s true. Chace’s and his own. “I love him, and—what happened? Please.”  
  
“I might even believe you. Still not my story to tell.” Chace tugs him over to a rack of implements, lined up and eager for action. “Hold this. It’s a paddle.”  
  
It’s heavier than it should be, unless that’s psychological, but otherwise not terribly threatening. Black and simple and flat. Chris waves it tentatively.  
  
“Put your shoulder into it. Hit my hand. Okay, better.”  
  
They both glance over in unison, as if reminded by the sting, checking on Sebastian. Who’s talking calmly with the flustered Domme, gently taking the flogger, demonstrating a grip, sketching motions in the air. She nods uncertainly; he asks a question, and she nods again, and they do a single swing together.  
  
This impact lands. The man moans under it. Sebastian raises eyebrows— _see? you’re going to be good at this_ —and she blushes, and smiles.  
  
Chace pokes Chris’s bicep with a length of wood. “Hold this one. It’s a cane. We’ve got bamboo and rattan. Various versions, more and less flexible. Get a feel for them.”  
  
Chris swishes it through the air. It makes a sound, crisp and wicked; and something dark and primal in his gut—or lower—coils in response.  
  
Sebastian’s talking to the submissive now, both of them laughing a little. The man’s still tied to the post; Sebastian’s got his head tipped to one side, earnestly explaining something, eyes not visible but no doubt lit up and exuberant and kind. Chris wants to reach out and draw him back over, back to where he belongs, at Chris’s side.  
  
And what the hell kind of thought is _that?_ He puts the cane back on the rack, hastily.  
  
“You’re adorable,” Chace announces. “Also, they’re done. You might want to not drool so much; he’s coming back. And…five, four…three, two…ah.”  
  
An older man who looks far too silver-screen familiar hurries over to the red-haired Domme and starts talking. With gestures. Waving at Sebastian’s back. Chris can all but read his lips: _yeah, the guy who was helping you, you know who he is? you know the stories?_  
  
The girl’s head whips around that direction. The man nods emphatically. Her mouth falls open.  
  
Chace laughs. “And now they get a story, too. One more thing.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Sebastian’s paused to chat with the blonde in black again; Chace’s eyes are deadly serious. “If you hurt him, in any way whatsoever, I will hurt _you_ in ways you can’t even imagine. Got it?”  
  
“I wouldn’t,” Chris whispers. It’s another truth. A part of his soul. “I won’t. I mean—I’m not—he’s not, we’re not, um, with each other like that—I’d do fucking _anything_ to keep him from getting hurt, or hurt again, or—I swear.”  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re not with each other _like that,_ ” Chace says. “Three years, it’s been. And he came back here for you.”  
  
At this point Sebastian reappears, takes in the tension with one quick flicker of pale blue eyes, and interjects, “Chace, Margarita wants to know where the ice dildos went, and whether you used them as party centerpieces again; _again,_ really?”  
  
“One time!” Chace protests. “Maybe two. Two times. Okay, okay…” and lets himself be nudged that direction by one guiding Romanian hand.  
  
“So,” Sebastian says to Chris. “Learning things?”  
  
A whole host of possible responses clamor on his tongue. Oh yes. Learning things.  
  
About himself. About canes. About Sebastian; and oh that jealousy’s back in force. How many times has Sebastian been in that position, tied to a post, positioned for a spanking, up on that stage? How many times has Sebastian given himself to someone who isn’t Chris—and never said anything, not any of the nights they’d gotten drunk together or given each other shoulder-rubs after fight training or talked Chris through an anxiety attack before the next audition?  
  
Chris shuts his eyes. His head aches. A whip cracks across skin in the background.  
  
Sebastian did come back for him. Because he asked.  
  
“Chris,” Sebastian’s saying, and there’s a light touch to his arm, that familiar beloved hand. “Chris, if this is too intense, we can go, you’ve seen the place, no one’ll be offended if it’s not your thing…”  
  
Sebastian’s trying to take care of him. Of course. Because Sebastian takes care of people. By giving; by giving himself.  
  
Not the same as sharing himself. Which Sebastian doesn’t do. Not with anyone, not really. Chris hadn’t known about this; on the flip side, Chace had been surprised when Sebastian had shared the cookie, and Chris would be willing to bet large amounts of money on his inexplicable conviction that nobody here’s ever seen Sebastian in sweatpants and a NASA-logo t-shirt at four am, drowning himself in peppermint mocha while practicing dialogue in a hotel room and trying to lick whipped cream off his own nose.  
  
He opens his eyes. “It’s your thing. This.”  
  
“It was. Or it is. Or—don’t worry about me.” Sebastian shrugs, continuing to look concerned. “We could—”  
  
Someone taps Sebastian on the shoulder. He turns.  
  
Chris looks, too. Someone he vaguely recognizes, some kind of producer or financer or studio executive, white-toothed and beaming. “Sebastian! Babe, when did you come back?”  
  
“I’m not.” Sebastian sounds tired, suddenly. “Only observing. Tonight.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“He’s sure,” Chris snaps. Something about the man’s grin’s rubbing his instincts every kind of wrong way.  
  
Sebastian tips his head Chris’s direction. “What he said.”  
  
“I know you said so,” the man says, “everybody’s saying, but come on, it’s you, you just need the right person, right? We’ve got some new stuff upstairs, I remember how much you liked the little electric—”  
  
Sebastian catches Chace’s eye. Chace starts their way.  
  
“You know you want to,” purrs the man.  
  
“He said no,” Chris snarls, metaphorical hackles bristling with outrage on Sebastian’s behalf, and grabs Sebastian’s wrist without even thinking about it. “Isn’t this supposed to mean something?”  
  
“Sure, but it doesn’t, from the way you’re acting.” Ophidian eyes flick up and down Chris’s body. Chris is absolutely certain he’s being judged and found wanting. “Sebastian, are you planning to let someone use you, or not? Are you available? I just want to be clear.”  
  
Sebastian takes a deep breath. Looks up at Chris. And Chris, despite knowing with split-second foreboding exactly what’s coming, can’t believe it.  
  
Sebastian’s eyes flick to Chris’s wristband; Chris, picking up the cue, yanks it off. And then, working completely on instinct, holding Sebastian’s arm, meets those bottomless eyes.  
  
Sebastian nods. Chris peels off that red satin too and shoves both bands into his pocket. His, and Sebastian’s.  
  
Chace, a foot away, halts mid-step.  
  
“I’m his tonight,” Sebastian says, clear and decided. His voice doesn’t carry much beyond their little bubble of tension, but the room gets soundless anyway.  
  
Chris transfers Sebastian’s captive wrist to his other hand, puts his free hand on the back of Sebastian’s neck, puts every drop of protective love and anger that he’s feeling into his smile. “You heard him. Mine.”  
  
The man holds up hands in surrender, says without grace but with resignation, “Have fun,” and turns away.  
  
Chris can feel his pulse thundering in his ears, through his fingertips. His skin feels alive where he’s touching Sebastian: alive and electric and wild. He’s amazed he’s not shaking; he feels like he ought to be. Sebastian’s shut his eyes, head falling forward a fraction; he seems to be leaning closer, as if he’s finding strength in Chris’s hand claiming him. His breathing slows.  
  
Chace comes over, whistling softly. “Okay, that was kinda spectacular. Not that it wasn’t obvious to everyone with half a brain, but still, spectacular. Thought you hadn’t done this before, Evans.”  
  
“I…haven’t?”  
  
“Right, sure, you’re just naturally all dominant around him—oh, wait, what am I saying, of course you are.” Chace rolls his eyes. “Sebastian, look at me?”  
  
Both winter-ocean eyes open at the question. Gradually. Slightly unfocused. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Yeah, no, you came in saying you didn’t want to do a scene, and I know you haven’t been—so I’m asking, and I’m telling you to answer me honestly, right now. Are you okay?”  
  
Sebastian sighs. Blinks twice; and his gaze regains more clarity. “Thanks for that. I…think I am. I mean exactly that. I didn’t expect it to hit that fast. Or that hard.”  
  
“I could tell you why,” Chace says meaningfully, smirking at Chris’s expression, “but I think it’s gonna be fun to watch you two figure it out. Go upstairs, okay? Purple Room?”  
  
“We’re not—” Sebastian’s face, throughout Chace’s short speech, has gotten paler. “Chris was helping me, just helping me, he wouldn’t want to—Chris doesn’t want me, I’m not—not what he wants, I know I’m not, he’s too _good_ for me—”  
  
“You think _I_ don’t want _you?_ ” Chris interrupts, because wait, _what?_  
  
“Aaaand now I’m way more worried than I was thirty seconds ago,” Chace says. “Not about Evans, either. He’s a natural at this. Seb, you know you’re not sounding very rational, right? _You_.”  
  
“Me—”  
  
“Think about what you just said, and then think about what Chris just said, and the fact that he’s been rubbing his thumb over the back of your neck this entire time. Now tell me what you’d say to another sub who just had _that_ kind of reaction.”  
  
“Oh God.” Sebastian drops his face into his hands. “I think I need to sit down.”  
  
“I think that is an awesome idea,” Chace agrees, “and I’m getting you water.” Off to the side, the pretty blonde girl’s shooing away curious onlookers like she’s herding chickens. Chris catches words along the lines of “—yes he is, whether or not he’s back is _his_ business not yours, he’s _fine_ , he doesn’t need you hovering, _privacy_ , remember—” and decides she’s got the situation in hand.  
  
Besides, Sebastian needs him.  
  
He gets Sebastian settled onto the accommodating barstool again. Chace hands over water. Sebastian breathes out, still a little pale but more steady. “Please tell me I didn’t just fall apart in front of the entire club.”  
  
“Nope,” Chace says cheerfully. “Margarita scared at least sixty percent of them off. Anyway, everybody understands. Not like you haven’t been away. And Evans pretty much put you under with a hand on your neck and a public claiming, which, by the way, impressive.”  
  
“Um,” Chris says. He’s not sure whether or not to add the thanks. He’s got one arm around Sebastian’s shoulders, rubbing gently, trying to be reassuring. Aftercare, he thinks. He’s read about it, and this isn’t exactly that, not like they did a scene, but from what Chace is saying, he _did_ push them that direction. And Sebastian needs the support.  
  
Chace goes on, “And then I made you think about it, and now you’re feeling completely off-balance, which is kinda my fault, but you know why I did it. And Chris deserves to know where all that came from, because you meant everything you just said, even if you didn’t mean to say it. Right?”  
  
“I know why you did it,” Sebastian says to the water. It ripples in concerned reply. “And I know what I said, and why. I just feel like—”  
  
“Like you should know better? You told me once that emotions’re never predictable. I know you know.”  
  
“Sebastian,” Chris says. “I wanted to. I mean, I don’t know what I’m fuckin’ doing, but—I want to.”  
  
Sebastian looks up.  
  
Their eyes meet.  
  
“See,” Chace announces, “I _knew_ you both wanted to, and I’m never wrong. But I am also clearly the responsible one tonight, which frankly is weird and uncomfortable, so I’d like to make this all better as soon as possible. Seb, you need to talk to him. And then if you don’t want to go through with it, if you two want to pretend that never happened, we’ll support your decision. Everybody knows why you did it, and we won’t hold you to it. But talk first.”  
  
Sebastian’s actually smiling again, a frayed and tattered battle-flag over a hard-won field. “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Oh, fuck right off with that.” Chace’s grin’s one of sheer relief. “Use it on him, not me.”  
  
“So,” Sebastian says to Chris, in an audible unparalleled act of desperate high-wire confidence over swirling rapids, “come upstairs with me? And—and we can talk?”  
  
Chris considers and discards a number of possible responses over the next heartbeat or two. He’s out of his depth, so far out he can’t even see the bottom, and yet—  
  
And yet there’s one thing he’s sure of. Beyond question, beyond doubt.  
  
Finally he takes Sebastian’s hand—the one not clutching the bottle of water like a lifeline—and turns it over and traces fingertips lightly across that inner wrist, the pulse-beat there. “I’d like that. I told you I wanted to. I do. It felt right. But it’s up to you.”  
  
Sebastian looks at Chris’s fingers on his skin. “Yes, then. And…yes.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“It felt right,” Sebastian whispers. “But I can’t—I’ll tell you in private. I swear.”  
  
“Okay,” Chris agrees. And they go upstairs. Hand in hand. Chris isn’t letting go. And Sebastian, despite a curious sort of smile, doesn’t argue.  
  
The Purple Room proves to indeed live up to its name, in carpet and wall-paint and window-drapes. Other than that it mostly resembles a romantic Victorian bedroom, polished and expensive, with a heavy four-poster bed occupying much of the space.  
  
It’d have to be a naughty Victorian romance, though. That headboard’s got some interesting toys nestled into indigo velvet. And labels on the solid dresser drawers.  
  
Sebastian sets the water on the dresser, and sits down on the end of the bed. Runs both hands through his hair. “Okay. _Da_. Yes. I—you can say it felt right, you can think you want me, but—it’s just being here, Chris, it’s this place, you’re thinking it’ll be fun, you’re thinking you want to try—”  
  
“How about you don’t tell me what I’m thinking.” Chris sits down beside him. Maybe a bit too sharply. “Sorry. But. Yeah, all of that, but it’s not just being here. You know it’s not. You felt—whatever that was too.” I love you, he doesn’t say. I can tell this is important, whatever you’re trying so hard not to tell me. Please let me help.  
  
“Maybe I do.” Sebastian pulls both knees up and wraps his arms around them, small and unhappy. “I don’t trust myself anymore. My reactions. I don’t know.”  
  
“Chace seems to trust your reactions.” Cautious, tiptoeing, a hand held out. “You were helping people, down there.”  
  
“Sure, but I can’t—” A headshake, a muttered sentence or two in Romanian. “That’s not about me. And Chace doesn’t know everything.”  
  
“And you think if I know everything I won’t want you.”  
  
“You won’t.”  
  
“Tell me,” Chris says, “and let’s find out.”  
  
“You want to know why I stopped.” Sebastian slides to his feet. Because he’s shaking, this movement isn’t graceful; Chris’s chest hurts, watching. He catches himself with a hand on the closest bedpost. “Why I can’t—I could try again, I could walk out there and get on my knees and put on a show for them all and I’d even enjoy it, probably—but I _can’t_ —”  
  
“Please,” Chris begs. The anger’s dwindled into sorrow, like the taste of heartbreak, like the flavor of ashes. “Tell me what happened. Not—I mean, not if it’s bad, if you can’t talk about—I’m not trying to push you, but—” Honesty’s all he’s got left. “I’m scared. For you.”  
  
“For me—” Sebastian’s eyebrows go up. Astonished. “I never got hurt. I promise. I stopped because I had to, because I’m not—not good enough—”  
  
“What the—they all _love_ you!”  
  
“There’s something wrong with me!”  
  
This outburst freezes the room. Bounces off frightened dresser-drawers and window-drapes. Shocks Chris’s next words and heart into crumpled horrified voiceless pieces.  
  
Sebastian slumps back against the bedpost. Eyes shut. “Oh, fuck—not like that, I’m not sick or anything, I’m just—I stopped feeling it. It was good, it used to be good. I loved it. I _love_ it. But it stopped being enough, all the nights, all the partners, all the fucking orgasms, God—it never got deep enough, it never meant enough, and everyone loved me because I was so sweet and so good at it all and I just felt so cold all the time—”  
  
“Seb—”  
  
“ _I_ changed. Not them; me. It wasn’t—it started to feel like—I’d do a scene and I’d go down and come back after and it never touched that last empty spot, and I don’t know why, and I needed something—different—and there’s something wrong with me, Chris, there must be, nothing _else_ changed—”  
  
“Sebastian!” This time his voice gets through the ragged words. Sebastian’s shoulders’re trembling.  
  
“Listen,” Chris starts, with no clue what he’s going to say, only knowing he has to try. He can’t let that pain go on a second more. He _can’t_ not try. “There’s nothing fucking wrong with you, you’re fucking perfect—people _change_ , you idiot, you won’t always want the same thing and that’s fine—it’s not your fault if you’re feeling cold, and fuck, why didn’t you say so, come here—”  
  
“I meant—”  
  
“I know what you meant,” Chris tells him, and gets to his feet, and opens both arms.  
  
Sebastian gazes at him, lips parted, eyes huge; and then falls into them.  
  
Chris holds him through the tears, through the shakiness; holds him even after that, in the silence. Keeps Sebastian’s head cradled against his chest, and strokes despairing hair, and, greatly daring, presses a kiss to his forehead.  
  
Sebastian chokes on the next tiny sob, and hiccups, and tries to look at him.  
  
“Shh,” Chris murmurs. “You’re okay. And I’m still here. You told me, and I’m still here, and I’ve got you.”  
  
This gets a watery smile. “You do…but…”  
  
“But you don’t want to do this anymore, and you think I do? I like the idea, yeah. I liked you being mine, down there. But it’s not like I’ll miss it, if I never had it.” He swipes a thumb through the tear-tracks on Sebastian’s cheek. “I just want you.”  
  
Sebastian’s smile wobbles. “I want you. I always have. I lo—but that’s not right. I still want this. I miss it, Chris—I miss feeling it, I want a collar on, I want my hands behind my back, I want to look up at someone and just—be theirs—I want to be _yours_. And I don’t think I can, not anymore, I’m just not fucking capable of—I’m so sorry, Chris, I—”  
  
The words come out before Chris even knows he’s saying them. “Get on your knees.”  
  
Sebastian drops to the floor.  
  
The quiet rustle of the impact is a thunderclap. Ringing like a bell.  
  
Sebastian stares at him, eyes enormous.  
  
Chris eases closer. A shifting of weight across luxurious carpet-weave, an adjustment of shoulders. Sebastian shivers. Not from fear; he’s not looking away. Only that same lovely half-astounded afraid-to-hope gaze.  
  
“You said you’d stopped feeling it with everyone,” Chris murmurs, a question. Each word matters more than anything ever has. “You feel it with me.”  
  
And Sebastian breathes out, exhale like the words’ve drawn it out of him, and nods.


	3. and we're awfully glad we came

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they play out the scene. And say some very important words along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Minor warnings** for BRIEF discussion of all sorts of kinks, including pretty intense things that Sebastian's done in the past, while they negotiate what they're comfortable with. The only things they'll actually get to in this fic are the ones in the tags.

“Good,” Chris tells him. “Good.”  
  
Sebastian sighs again, a hushed drifting exhale, and leans closer, on his knees. They’re both fully dressed and Chris is handling this through some pretty damn good guesswork and, God, this feels right, he thinks. So right. Sebastian kneeling before him, gazing up at him that way.  
  
“Ohhhkay,” he says, picking his way ahead along the slippery rock-strewn path, heart racing, blood thumping in his ears. “You know more than I do. Tell me how you’re feeling right now.”  
  
Sebastian blinks, swallows, tries again. His gaze is dark, pupils expanding to consume pale blue. “Surprised. Lighter. Good.”  
  
“Okay,” Chris says once more, and steps closer, and puts out a hand. Lifting Sebastian’s chin. Cupping his cheek, thumb rubbing firmly over a cheekbone. Sebastian lets out a little sigh.  
  
“Still good?”  
  
“Very.” Sebastian’s eyes slip shut, eyelashes long enough to brush Chris’s skin. “Chris…”  
  
“Still right here. Still got you.” He wraps a hand into dark hair and coaxes Sebastian’s head to rest against his hip. Sebastian’s arms reach for him, hesitantly; Chris lets him hold on, and then anchors both wrists behind his own back with a hand, pinning them in place. “Surprised, you said.”  
  
“Different,” Sebastian whispers. “With you.”  
  
“Yeah…” He pets dark hair again, the way his fingers’ve been begging to all night. “But nice, right? For me, too.”  
  
“Nice,” Sebastian says. He sounds dreamy, faraway. “Yes.”  
  
“You’ve been needing this, haven’t you?” He brushes a fingertip to the corner of Sebastian’s eye; Sebastian obligingly closes both eyes, so Chris rests his entire hand over them for a minute, keeping him in darkness. “You could’ve told me. Hell, I’d’ve been here in a fuckin’ heartbeat. You know how much I’ve wanted you?”  
  
“I need this,” Sebastian whispers back. “And I couldn’t—I couldn’t explain, why I want it, why I had to stop—if you were disgusted, or—”  
  
“I’m not.” He lifts the hand. “Look at me.” Sebastian does. “I want you. And I want to try this. Only if you feel up to it. I know why you stopped. I understand. Or I think I do. So tell me now, and we can stop here if you want, and that’s fine, okay?”  
  
Sebastian nods, a single motion. “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Yes, you want to stop?”  
  
“No…I don’t know…for a minute? Please?”  
  
“You mean yellow?” Chris says, after thinking about potential replies.   
  
Surprise cuts through the euphoria momentarily, followed by comprehension. “You did do research…yes, please. Just for a minute.”  
  
“Totally fine,” Chris emphasizes, and gets him up off the floor and curled into the bed, tucked back into protective arms. The headboard’s feeling protective too. It looms above in purple-velvet toy-adorned benevolent majesty. “Feel up to talking about it?”  
  
“We should.” Sebastian sits up enough to peel off his jacket and kick off his shoes. He’s still wearing black jeans and that clinging transparent shirt, ocean-hued fabric caressing his body. The sleeves are, incongruously, a bit too long; this makes him look younger somehow, sweeter, more vulnerable, and Chris wonders whether he knows. “He wasn’t wrong. I mean downstairs. Me, and you…I wasn’t acting like someone who’d only come in to observe. I should know better.”  
  
“Maybe,” Chris says. Feeling it out, step by step across the riverbed. Currents and all. “You’ve been around here more, so I’ll trust you if you say so. But…I don’t think I regret it, y’know?” He brushes a stray strand of hair out of Sebastian’s face. The motion feels natural, and Sebastian smiles. “And I’ll tell you again that I want to try, if that’ll help. I want you.”  
  
“You said that…” Sebastian worries at his lower lip, teeth sinking in, fretful. Chris sighs, shakes his head, puts his hand back on the nape of Sebastian’s neck. He’s afraid that this is too much—Sebastian did ask for breathing room—but tense-knit muscles relax almost instantly under his touch.  
  
Sebastian murmurs, “I do like that…I knew I wanted you. I never thought—I never imagined you would—”  
  
“Right, because you’re so unlovable, no one ever wants you.” Chris gives him a mostly-mock glare. A heartstring twinges: Sebastian can’t actually believe that about himself, can he? Chris’ll just have to tell him otherwise. Repeatedly. “Don’t even try that one on me. Not when I’ve spent fuckin’ _years_ thinking about kissing you. I will totally…um, what would I do? Spank you?”  
  
“Would you?” Sebastian’s eyes very obviously want to sparkle. Tentative, hopeful, shy. “I might have on occasion contemplated precisely that. Especially while in my shower. You wanted to kiss me?”  
  
“Fucking _always_ ,” Chris says, and leans in.   
  
Sebastian kisses like mornings. Like dawn, splendid color coming up over the horizon and spilling into the world, painting new beginnings in fuchsia and tangerine and gold. Like secrets laid bare, offered up to Chris for the taking. His lips are soft and warm and skilled and delicious, and Chris plunders them happily, hand tightening more on Sebastian’s neck, earning a tiny moan.  
  
When he pulls away, they’re both breathing hard. Sebastian’s eyes look dreamy again, blue washed with blissful waves. Chris loves that look, and the fact that he’s put it there.  
  
“So,” he starts, trying hard to remember to be responsible, “you did say…slow down, for a minute…”  
  
“I…did…you could kiss me again.”  
  
“Come on, we’re not gonna do this if you can’t talk to me.” He slips a finger under Sebastian’s chin, coaxing. “Do I have to make that a rule, or something?”  
  
A smile, sweet and more or less still self-aware, tugs at the side of that expressive mouth. “Yes, Chris.”  
  
“God, you’re beautiful,” Chris says. It’s true. He has to say it. “Okay. So…we’re doing this now. Here, and now. What, um. What would you do if…tell me how we’d handle this if I, y’know, had come in and, um, asked to play with you.” He’s trying to frame that as an order, not a question; from the smile he gets in return, he thinks his efforts are appreciated. He takes Sebastian’s hand again, and then has a thought, and wraps his fingers around that slim wrist instead.  
  
Sebastian breathes in, not sharply but as if he’s felt a revelation, as if Chris’s touch has shivered all the way through him. “That…I like that, too.”  
  
“Thought so. Answer me.”  
  
“Yes, Chris. If you were…if we had an arrangement…we’d have agreed on time—whether you want me for an evening, a day, three days—and limits, things neither of us is prepared to do…we’d have safewords, standard stoplights unless you or I prefer something else…you know that much, I think.”  
  
“Told you I did some reading.” He squeezes Sebastian’s wrist lightly. Authoritative, though not harsh. “Tell me your limits.”  
  
Sebastian looks at the hand, at Chris’s grip on him, before answering. “No permanent marks. No photography or video—I personally don’t mind the idea, but if it ever got out…”  
  
“Got it. Go on.” Sebastian’s right, but Chris’s heart’s currently preoccupied with the horrified consideration of _permanent marks._  
  
“You can only share me if we’ve previously agreed on that. I’ve done it—sometimes people like to make me please other people, while they watch—but I need to know the details beforehand.” Sebastian bites a lip, quick nibble and release. “You wouldn’t…I mean, you could, but I’d…I’d rather you didn’t. This is—it’s you.”  
  
Chris’s response is probably too emphatic and definitely blasphemous and just a touch angry and loudly possessive; but Sebastian’s eyes’re dancing again by the end, so that’s okay. They’re okay.  
  
“Thank you for that.”  
  
“As if I’d ever fucking share you,” Chris grumbles. “I seriously _should_ spank you for even bringing it up.”  
  
“Yes, please. Really that’s nearly it; I’m willing to do most things, especially if you get me far enough under. Oh—not exactly a limit, but considering where we are, you should know: I can be up for watersports, though not here, this room isn’t set up for that, unless you want me in the bathtub. I don’t mind being claimed that way, though. Sometimes. No other bodily wastes, however.”  
  
Chris’s brain is temporarily stuck someplace between _thank God I looked up some terms and I know we’re not talking about amusement parks_ and _oh my God that’s an actual option that’s actually on the metaphorical table how is that even an option_ and dreadful-but-fascinating images of himself pushing Sebastian to the bottom of the tub and taking his cock in hand and—  
  
“Chris?”  
  
“Sorry! Um. I. You. That’s a—okay, no. I mean—if you—we could talk about—but no. Not now. Not yet. I mean—you know what I mean.”  
  
“I believe so, yes.” Sebastian smiles. Chris’s heart does acrobatic routines. “I normally only do the heavier whips, or flechettes and knives, or anything with fire, with extremely experienced partners…”  
  
“That’s fine!” He’s not about to take _any_ kind of knife to Sebastian’s skin. He’s pretty sure that’s one of _his_ limits, and he says so. Sebastian nods. “That’s more or less it. I’d ask you about condoms, but…do we need to? You know how long it’s been for me. And—I trust you.”  
  
“You trust me.” He rubs his thumb along the inside of Sebastian’s arm, nudging up that too-long sleeve. “You trust me this much…with you, with this…”  
  
Those sea-spray eyes are very clear; dark with desire, but rational enough to answer. “Yes.”  
  
That affirmation hangs in the hush, and becomes the purest piece of the night. Chris inquires, fingers working their way higher under Sebastian’s sleeve, “Okay, so those’re your limits, thank you, that was…good…” Sebastian shivers, and long eyelashes sweep down and up. Chris grins. “ _So_ good. For me. Now tell me what you like. I mean, what you actually get excited about. Y’know. What you…enjoy.”  
  
Sebastian laughs, soft and wondering. “This, I think. Your hands on me. But if you want specifics…I like sensation. Heat, cold, impacts, vibrators, electricity, spankings and canes…I like being restrained, feeling helpless, being in your hands completely. I can come just from pain if you tell me that’s what the rules are, but if I get a choice I like both, the hurt and then something that feels good…I like being played with. I like feeling owned. Cherished. Letting you decide what I get to have, if I get to come…I like collars, and kneeling at your feet.”  
  
“You want to belong to me,” Chris clarifies. His cock stirs; he’s been hard since the first public moment of claiming, but the arousal’s insistent now, building with every word in that luscious faintly-accented voice. “You want to be _mine_.”  
  
“ _Da_. Yes.”  
  
“Well,” Chris says, meeting his eyes, “you are.”  
  
Sebastian trembles.  
  
“Anything else?”  
  
“I…I can’t think while you’re…I don’t mind being called names—I like being talked to—but I’d rather you tell me I’m being good than—than that I’m worthless. I can be a good little slut for you, or your naughty schoolboy, or—I’d just rather it be about praise, not—not being useless or disgusting…” Sebastian does the unconsciously tempting lip-bite again. It’s a diversionary tactic, Chris is figuring out. When blue eyes’re trying to pretend that what they’ve just said doesn’t matter. “Of course if you’d rather…it’s only a preference. I’ll do what you want.”  
  
“Nope,” Chris announces, casually cheerful but with steel underneath. “You said you were mine. Say it again.”  
  
“Yours,” Sebastian whispers. The night quivers.  
  
“Mine. You know what that means?”  
  
“Is…this…a trick question? Do _you?”_  
  
“One of _my_ rules,” Chris informs him, “is that we do what we _both_ want. Why I asked. And you’ll tell me what you’re thinking, if there’s something you want that I’m not doing, or you don’t like something I am doing, and honestly I’m probably gonna fuck this up at some point, not like I’ve done this before, so please talk to me, okay?”  
  
It’s ended up a question, not an order. He holds his breath.  
  
And Sebastian’s smile reappears. Lighting up the world. “Yes, Chris.”  
  
Chris takes a breath, holds it, lets it go. “Good. Um…very good. Thank you for telling me. I’m…pleased with you for that.” He cringes internally—has that come out too condescending, too awkward?—but then he catches sight of Sebastian’s expression. And those doubting voices are permanently silenced.  
  
“So,” he pushes on, low-voiced and rhetorical, fingers pressing into the line of Sebastian’s arm, “you said you were mine…what should I do with you?”  
  
Sebastian’s lips sketch what looks like the word _anything,_ but inaudibly so. Chris has never seen his eyes so huge, so dark, so pleading; and his own cock jumps and twitches, wanting more. It’s very into this role. Chris is too.  
  
He’d never known how _much_ he was into this role, of course, except he thinks maybe he’s always known, every time he’s put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder or leaned their weight together. Some kind of wordless sympathy between them, humming like a plucked harpstring, a single quivering unacknowledged note.   
  
Sebastian’d followed the order, earlier that evening, when Chris had finally told him—not asked him—to go change.  
  
He says, “Strip for me.” And Sebastian slides off the bed, lean and graceful in the long-limbed way of hunting cats and cheetahs, all legs and arms and defined waist and unthinking beauty. The shirt and jeans end up in a tidy pile on the closest chair, not precisely folded but not left messy; Chris guesses that there’s some training there, not that he exactly wants to think about that now. He looks Sebastian— _his_ Sebastian—up and down instead.  
  
He’d said beautiful, before. That word doesn’t do this sight any justice.  
  
Sebastian’s breathtaking. Literally. Chris feels kind of lightheaded, taking him in. Pale golden skin—Sebastian tans easily but loses the tan easily too, and he’s been shirtless on Broadway recently but not within the last few weeks, so the sunshine’s fading. That toned stomach—God, Sebastian’s got gorgeous proportions, not disturbingly triangular like Chris himself, simply tall and slim and rippling with muscle like a work of art. A light dusting of dark hair over his chest—he gets it waxed, Chris knows, for the Winter Soldier role, but has evidently not been bothering lately, though it’s not much, just enough to be definitively masculine. Arms tucked behind his back, at the moment—and Chris nearly asks about that one but realizes that it might be a scene component and anyway he kind of likes it, Sebastian neatly submissive, awaiting command. _His_ command.  
  
His gaze drifts lower. To Sebastian’s thighs; to the juncture between them; to the rigid line of Sebastian’s cock, at attention, plainly loving the attention. It’s thick and full and dark, maybe a bit shorter than Chris’s but with a lovely curve, and Chris wants to take him in hand, to learn the shape of him, to discover every motion that makes him cry out in ecstasy or erotic pain or both at once.  
  
Sebastian’s blushing, he notices, as he glances back up; and he has to ask. “Still okay?”  
  
Sebastian shuts his eyes. The pink’s creeping across his cheeks, to his ears. “ _Da._ This…you looking at me like…”  
  
“Like I want to lick you everywhere? I do.” He settles his hand at Sebastian’s neck again, fingers curled round the back, thumb pressing lightly under his jawline, not squeezing. “Or did you mean like I’ve claimed you? Like I’ve taken you up here for the night, and put you on display just for me, mine to look at, every inch…”  
  
Sebastian’s next breath catches: a sob, a yes, a please.  
  
Chris grins. “You like that idea, don’t you? You did say you love that. Belonging to me.” He leans closer, curls fingers a fraction tighter, lets the next words ghost over Sebastian’s ear: “I love that, too.”  
  
Sebastian’s knees buckle. Chris catches him, arm under his shoulders; he’d been half expecting that. He _is_ still guessing; but he’s figuring some things out. He’s figuring Sebastian out, piece by piece; maybe not completely, maybe never completely, but he’s damn well willing to spend his whole life trying to give those surprised-hyacinth eyes exactly what they need.  
  
He throws a glance around the room. He’s got no clue how to use ninety percent of the items available. Sebastian no doubt has all the clues, but—he spares a second to peek at hazy eyes, balancing weight in one arm—Sebastian’s not in any shape to be giving directions. “You with me? Color.”  
  
“Mmm…green.” One blink. Another. “Chris?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“This feels…good. Like…” Sebastian puts an arm around Chris’s neck. Then the other. Breathing, while Chris holds him. “Like…did you read about subspace? At all?”  
  
Hmm. More coherent than he’d thought, then; well, Chris reminds himself, he _is_ experienced at this. And you’re not. “Sure. Some. Like floating, like being weightless…um, like being high?” He pets Sebastian’s bare back, partly marveling that he can, partly stalling for time. “You said you could still go down, but it didn’t work well for you, anymore…”  
  
“Not like this,” Sebastian tells him. “This feels further. Deeper. I’m not…thinking about it too much, I think. I don’t know. I wanted to tell you. I like it.”  
  
“Good,” Chris gets out, emotions tangled into a sticky ball in his throat. “Good. That…you’re being so good, you’re doing so well, telling me things like I asked you to, thank you, so, um, I’m gonna ask you a question, okay? And I want you to answer. We talked about me spanking you. Do you still want that? Now?”  
  
Sebastian’s eyes light up, and that’s definitely a nod, but just in case, Chris adds, “Out loud, please.”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says, hushed but clear. “Yes, Chris.”  
  
“Okay. Go sit on the bed and wait for me.” He flings off clothing in a tornado of desire and flailing limbs, nowhere near as practiced as Sebastian’s fluid movements. Sebastian doesn’t seem to mind, though; blissful eyes follow Chris’s motions, and one hand actually stretches his way before remembering itself and darting back.  
  
Chris stops, down to boxers. “What was that? Tell me.”  
  
“I wanted to touch you,” Sebastian whispers. “But I—didn’t ask for permission—Chris, I—I’m sorry, I’m not acting like myself, I don’t know—”  
  
“Stop.”  
  
Sebastian’s chin trembles.  
  
Chris yanks off his boxers and throws them someplace across the room. He probably looks ridiculous, naked and aroused and a tiny bit irritated that Sebastian would need to apologize and mostly understanding why. He comes over to the bed. Holds out both hands. “You only have to ask. If you want to touch me. Whatever you need. I’m not mad at you.”  
  
“I know you’re not.” Sebastian, sitting on the bed, is at the right height to lean forward and be cuddled against Chris’s torso; Chris folds arms about his shoulders. “You’re too good for me, I said…”  
  
“Fuck _that_.”  
  
“No, but…I want to. To ask you, I mean. I _want_ to let you decide what I get to have. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to feel you. I’m sorry.”  
  
Chris has to turn that one over and around in his head for a while before he can come up with an answer. He’s not upset about it—if he’s honest with himself, the idea excites him, Sebastian asking him for permission, following orders if told yes or no, _wanting_ to be told—but he can’t quite make himself accept the need for an apology about it, either.   
  
He decides, “Okay. You can…you can ask me if you want to touch me. You don’t _have_ to ask, but if you want to, then yeah. Um. That’s another one of my rules, clear? If you want to touch me, and you forget to ask, don’t apologize, because you aren’t doing anything wrong. I’ll tell you not now or stop if I want you to stop, and you’ll listen. You…” He searches for the right words. For inspiration. “You _are_ acting like yourself. You said you weren’t. I think you’re wrong. I think this is you, wanting me, and fuck _yes_ you can touch me, okay? Better?”  
  
Sebastian leans back enough to look him in the eye, gaze someplace between euphoria and startlement and gratitude and something more, something indecipherable that Chris’s wistful heart wants to believe is love. “Yes. I—thank you, sir. Chris. Which would you rather…”  
  
“Use my name.” Not anything interchangeable. This is about them. Him, and Sebastian. And Chris will never be the same. That’s inarguable. He accepts it. It’s a glorious kind of private pain. “That one _is_ an order. Say it.”  
  
“Chris.” Sebastian’s eyes drift shut, then open: falling back under, the combination of touch and command. “Yes.”  
  
“Good. Get up. And…over my lap, over the bed, what works best for you?” He slides both hands up to cradle Sebastian’s face, tilting him up. “If I’m going to spank you. And, um, also you’re not going to come. Until I say so.”  
  
Sebastian’s next breath sounds a lot like a whimper. “Yes, Chris. And…I’d like being over your lap. I like feeling helpless. But you’ve never done this…bend me over the bed, please. It’ll be easier for you.”  
  
Chris bites his lip, making split-second decisions. “I trust you. But if you like feeling helpless…” A hint of velvet cord, lying on a side table, waves at the corner of his eye. An idea. A suggestion. “All right. Get up, face down, over the bed, hands behind your back.”  
  
Sebastian moves with gratifying promptness. This position will leave his face pressed into the purple silk and satin strewn over the bed; without hands, he won’t be able to hold himself up well. Chris is counting on this.  
  
The cord’s dark deep plum, the color of the night just after sundown on a summer day, and it wraps around slim wrists with exuberant joy. Chris _does_ have some skill with knots. He puts that skill to use now. “Too tight? Too loose? Tell me now.”  
  
An experimental tug, and a murmur of acceptance, almost drowsy, sinking into compliance; Chris trails a finger along the line of Sebastian’s spine, from the nape of his neck down to just above his bound hands, and finishes with a quiet kiss, lips lingering over skin and bone. “Ten,” he promises. “That’s all, okay? To start with. More if I decide you deserve it.” And if he himself can last any longer. He’s not even certain he can make it to ten. His entire body feels tremulous, crackling with energy, poised on the brink. Sebastian, and his hands, and every dream and daydream he’s ever had, and more.  
  
“Green,” Sebastian breathes into the shimmering mountains of the bed. “Please.”  
  
Chris pulls back a hand. Swings.  
  
The first impact resonates from his fingers and palm all the way along his spine and out into the night. The heat of his hand on Sebastian’s skin. That handprint, pink and bright.  
  
Sebastian moans softly, lifting his hips. Begging for more.  
  
More, then. The other side. Matching.   
  
The world’s shifted somehow, realigned, changed beneath them; and it’s a delicious change, wicked and sizzling and written in the rising of color under fair skin. Like freedom in the next crack of hand over skin, in Sebastian’s groan. They both want this. They both _need_ this. Sebastian’s Chris’s now, and they’ve needed that for a very long time.  
  
Chris makes the next two harder. His palm tingles. Sebastian’s breathing in cracked little gulps, wetness at the corner of the one visible eye, but he arches upward into the spanking when Chris continues. Backhand, testing, indulging curiosity; this seems to work well, judging from the tiny openmouthed cry. Chris nudges long legs further apart with a knee. Does it again.  
  
By eight, Sebastian’s outright crying, prettily and messily and unashamed. Tears across his cheek, wetting the bedspread; Chris leans down, covering that submissive body with his own, and turns Sebastian’s face toward his for a kiss. Sebastian tastes like salt and sweetness and kisses back readily, easy and pliant and surrendered for the taking. Chris breathes, “Two more,” against his lips, making him swallow the words; Sebastian moans faintly and rocks his hips up against Chris’s. Asking, mutely.  
  
Nine. Sebastian’s skin’s red and hot; Chris hasn’t been holding back with the last few, and Sebastian seems to love it. When Chris tugs at his hips, lifting him, rearranging him, his cock’s rock-hard and dripping, leaving wet smears across the bed. Chris shakes his head, even though Sebastian can’t see him, and slips a hand between trembling thighs for a teasing stroke and then a warning squeeze. Sebastian cries out softly, back arching; “Don’t come,” Chris reminds him firmly, and lands the last strike squarely in the center, where Sebastian’s legs are spread wide enough to display that tight rosy hole, beckoning him on.  
  
Sebastian’s whole body shudders in response, lost in sensation. He’s stunning like this, abandoned and needy and well-used and quivering at the lightest caress, and Chris tells him so. Sebastian’s breathing slows, at that, oddly calm; subspace, Chris thinks, floating, and strokes a hand down his back. Sebastian murmurs something indistinct—might be Chris’s name, might be a yes, certainly isn’t a no or a red-light stop—and goes limp under his touch, quiescent, obedient.  
  
Chris tells him he’s good, tells him he’s wonderful, tells him he’s taken everything so well, whispers pet names and endearments and words he’s never dared say aloud: you’re perfect, you’re everything, you’re my sweet boy, I’ve wanted you for so damn long, I love you—  
  
He freezes, terrified; but Sebastian only sighs, “Chris,” and curls fingers in and out as if searching. His hands’re still bound; Chris leaves them that way and wraps those fingers up in his own and doesn’t exactly cry.  
  
He does drop to his knees and kiss Sebastian’s hip, though. Tenderly, carefully, avoiding the worst of the hurt; but he knows Sebastian’ll feel it, and he isn’t wrong.

“Do you need more?” he asks, shaping the words between kisses, sitting on the carpet, lips wandering over Sebastian’s thigh. “Can you—oh, shit, sorry, you probably can’t.” Subspace, nonverbal states, right. Stupid. “Where are we? Color? You can answer that one, right?”  
  
“Mmm,” Sebastian says. “Yes, Chris. Green.”  
  
“Do you want to stay here? Is this enough?” He gives in to temptation and sets his hand back over the closest curve of freshly-spanked backside. Sebastian gasps; Chris isn’t exerting any force, but the pressure must be enough for fresh tears. “Do you want me to let you come? Answer honestly.”  
  
“…not yet,” Sebastian says, after a deliberate minute. “Too good, with you…but if you want me to…”  
  
“Not yet.” He gets up off the floor so he can sit on the bed, so he can sweep hair—damp with tears and exertion—out of Sebastian’s face. He’s feeling kind of dizzy with the weight of it. Elation, wonder, belated shock. He’s spanked Sebastian hard enough for tears, for bruises; he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s too strong, he’s made Sebastian cry, Sebastian who’s done this dozens of times with experienced partners…  
  
But: too good, Sebastian’d said. And those aren’t tears of pain, or if they are they’re mingled with release. And the visible part of Sebastian’s mouth is smiling.   
  
Chris’s cock reminds him of how luscious that mouth is, all wet and slack and well-pleasured. Chris’s heart reminds him how deeply in love he is with this man, heartpiercingly so. Like the first needle-bite of the first of his tattoos, brilliant and sharp and ecstatic.  
  
His eyes wander across antique furniture, indolent golden light, royal-dyed carpet; and land idly on the heap of his own clothing. On his shirt, on his jeans. On the belt-loops of his jeans. On the worn brown leather of his belt, familiar and time-softened.  
  
He looks back at Sebastian.  
  
Then he looks at his belt again.  
  
No. He can’t. He _can’t._  
  
Can he?  
  
“Sebastian,” his voice says. It’s making the decisions, evidently. “Are you feeling up to…more?”  
  
Sebastian stretches his arms in their restraints, rolling shoulders. His movements are slow, somnolent, caught in distant rainbows; but he says, “Yes, Chris.”  
  
“How do you feel about…oh God…I’m so sorry…never mind, I can’t…”  
  
Sebastian somehow manages to wiggle closer to him, leaning into Chris’s hip and thigh. His breath’s warm and tranquil. “Tell me. I’ll say red if I have to. I remember.”  
  
Chris gulps down a single sob—Sebastian’s taking care of him, even now—and squares shoulders and puts one hand on _his_ submissive’s head, toying with dark soft hair. It’s an anchor. He suspects Sebastian knows. “You, um…I wore a…you know my belt…”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says, peaceful and relaxed, cock remaining hard but seemingly content to be ignored between his legs. “Please.”  
  
And maybe it is that simple, after all.   
  
Chris exhales. Gets up, but bends down to kiss those lips one more time. He’s saying _I love you._ He means it. For everything.  
  
“Six,” he says, and comes back with his belt in hand. He’d wanted five—half of the previous round—but his anxious brain also insists on even numbers even now, apparently, and so: six. Sebastian doesn’t seem to mind the extra one. “And you’ll tell me if it hurts. In a way you don’t like, I mean.”  
  
“Yes, Chris,” Sebastian agrees, even spreading his legs wider, face-down and bent over the side of the bed.  
  
Chris considers his belt for a minute—he hadn’t in fact worked out the practical, only the idea—and opts for doubling it up, bunching the ends in his fist, making sure nothing buckle-related’s anywhere near Sebastian’s skin. He tests a practice swing, not connecting. Catches his breath. Yes. Okay, yes.  
  
He offers warning in the form of a heart, sketched quickly over Sebastian’s left cheek, over fading pink spanking-marks. Sebastian practically purrs. Chris abruptly finds himself grinning. Because this is _fun._ This, with Sebastian, is so much damn fun.  
  
He swings, not too hard, backhand for slightly better control. Sebastian audibly stops breathing. Chris stops, too. “All right? Color.”  
  
“Green…I…” Fingers do the circumscribed reaching-out again; Chris kisses them this time, licking devoutly at tips and joints and the small knife-nick from a Winter Soldier stunt blade. That one’d been plastic but sharp; Chris had been getting make-up touch-up work done and hadn’t been present for the blood. He’d barely kept himself from putting a fist through the greenscreen backdrop at the sight of the bandage, later.   
  
He kisses the old small scar in the present the way he would’ve tried to kiss it better then, and lets himself believe that this is real, this is allowed.  
  
“More,” Sebastian whispers finally. “You said…”  
  
“Right,” Chris affirms, and gets back to it. Not much harder, but a little. Red lines, new stripes across already fiery flesh; lower, too, searing the muscles of long lean thighs. Sebastian cries out, Chris’s name drawn from his lips like a plea, like a prayer. Four, five, and six, last and hardest, back across the rawest center spots, where it’ll linger; Sebastian makes a sound that’s only not a scream because it’s muffled in blankets, and his legs shake. He doesn’t fall—he’s too good for that, of course he is, he’s incredible—but he’s crying again, broken and anguished this time.  
  
Chris drops the belt. Grabs him, easing him to the floor, kneeling beside him. “Sebastian. _Sebastian_. Look at me, come on, God, you were so good—we’re done, that was it, you’re done, you’re so good for me, you’re amazing, come on, look at me, _please_ —”  
  
“Chris,” Sebastian gets out, eyes huge and swimming in tears; but he’s smiling through them. “You—oh, God, yes, please, yours—”  
  
“Mine.”  
  
“Yours, yes…” Sebastian’s head falls forward, to the side; Chris steadies him. “Anything, everything, please…”  
  
Anything. Everything. Chris lunges for the belt. It jumps eagerly to hand.   
  
He loops the belt around Sebastian’s throat. Tugs. Aged leather coils snugly over vulnerable skin.  
  
Sebastian’s lips part as the weight sinks in. A drop of wetness beads up at the tip of his cock. Then another. He’s present and gone, adrift somewhere Chris can’t follow but can see, someplace full of white light and simple surrender, hands limp in their bonds behind his back.  
  
“So beautiful,” Chris tells him, “letting me do this, being so good, all mine, I love you so much,” and pulls the makeshift collar and leash a hairsbreadth tighter. Sebastian can breathe, but it’s a struggle. And a pleasurable one, from the arch of his back, the flutter of his eyelashes, the loll of his head.  
  
Chris cups his cheek with one hand, and gets to his feet, and lifts a foot, and presses that foot against Sebastian’s dripping cock. Not too hard, but enough.  
  
Sebastian chokes on an inhale, eyes closing, body trying to simultaneously curl away from the pain and rock up into it; Chris jerks on the belt, keeping him in place, and watches him try to rub himself into the weight of Chris’s foot over and over, knowing nothing any longer but the intensity, what Chris is giving him, what Chris is making him feel.  
  
And Chris wants it all. He wants every piece of Sebastian, a thunderous craving that astounds him, fierce and primal; he gazes down at Sebastian’s face and helplessly moving hips and wants to write his claim in indelible ink, binding them together.  
  
And he wants to hold all those pieces of Sebastian safe. To carry the trust he’s been given in worshipful and reverent hands; to protect the man he loves and to try to be what Sebastian needs, always, every day.   
  
Looking down at Sebastian, who’s offered him this, who has this much faith in him, Chris is in awe. He suspects he forever will be.  
  
He takes his foot back, yanks on the belt—enough that Sebastian’s eyes go wide, next breath denied him—and lets go and shoves him—roughly but carefully, hands ready to help if needed—down to the plush and purple carpet. Sebastian’s still trying to breathe, gasping, cock slick with need, and ends up sprawled in a heap; Chris grabs his wrists, finds the strand that’ll loosen all the knots, and pulls. Sebastian whimpers—in disappointment, and Chris ends up wanting to laugh, strange joy bubbling up from his soul.   
  
He pushes Sebastian to his back. Demands, “Touch yourself, and _don’t come,”_ and puts one of Sebastian’s hands on his cock and the other between his legs, just to be clear. Sebastian doesn’t even try to speak, only moans and does as ordered, shamelessly teasing himself, long fingers slipping over heated skin, tracing the rim of his own hole.  
  
Chris stares, mentally shakes himself—enough to dive for the dresser drawer with its so-helpful label regarding lubricants—and snatches the first one that comes to hand. Sebastian watches him with desire-clouded eyes, letting out tiny whimpers and keens when something feels too good or when belt-wounded skin squirms against carpet, not stopping because Chris hasn’t told him to.  
  
Chris lands back on his knees between Sebastian’s thighs, pants, “Stop, okay, give me your hands, and also I’m going to fuck you, say something now if you don’t want that—”   
  
Sebastian holds out both hands. Trusting joyous blue in that gaze.  
  
Chris grabs his wrists. Pins them to the carpet above the spill of dark hair, one-handed. Lines himself up—Sebastian’s been doing an excellent job of opening himself up, and Chris _wants_ him to feel this, so only slips two fingers in, just _enough_ lube, he doesn’t want it to _hurt_ —  
  
The lube’s some sort of white scent, cool and tropical. Coconut and clouds, Chris thinks, and he’ll forever associate coconut and sweetness with this moment, the moment he pushes forward and slides home.  
  
He’s large, he’s aware—he’s prepared to wait, to stop, but Sebastian’s body gives way around him, prepared and ready and above all needing. Chris sinks all the way in, and stops, breathless in the midst of splendor, gripped by tight slick heat. Sebastian’s eyes’re mostly closed, eyelashes fluttering; Chris whispers, “Look at me,” and they open, dazed and euphoric.   
  
Chris kisses him, then: clumsy and sweet and desperate, all the words he doesn’t begin to know how to say. Sebastian kisses him back freely, and folds fingertips down to brush the back of Chris’s hand over his wrists.  
  
Chris starts to move again because he has to, he can’t not; but it’s okay because Sebastian’s moving with him, hips lifting to match his, over and over as they rock together. Chris feels the orgasm building, feels the rush gathering and swelling; he clings to enough presence of mind to get one last order out, gasping, “You—okay, come for me, _now_ —” and Sebastian whispers “Chris—” and _does,_ cock pulsing untouched between their stomachs, coming on command with Chris’s marks on his ass and Chris’s name on his lips, body tightening in rapture.  
  
That’s enough; Chris comes without even moving, comes buried inside him, cock emptying itself in a flood of rolling delirious lightning, wave after wave.  
  
They lie collapsed on the carpet for a while, Chris’s hand lying loosely around Sebastian’s wrists, bodies spent and hearts pounding, after that.  
  
Chris wants to lie there forever. Sebastian’s thoroughly still beneath him, breathing fast but slowing, face buried in Chris’s neck. Chris kisses the side of his head, hears the little sound in return. His cock’s softening, slipping; Sebastian makes another tiny noise as Chris stirs, as sensitive spots react to friction. Chris’s heart flinches at that noise, and reminds him in no uncertain terms that aftercare’s damned well required.  
  
Aftercare. After this. After everything they’ve just done. God.  
  
He pulls out, as gentle as he can, but Sebastian’s next inhale quivers anyway. “Sorry,” Chris whispers, hurting, “sorry, it’s okay, I’ll make it better, I swear—” and finds a towel and warm water from that Victorian-styled clawfoot tub and cleans them both up, lavishing tenderness on Sebastian’s skin. There’s one drawer full of lotions and creams; Chris doesn’t know most of the labels, but he does know a thing or two about care for bruises, so he picks out ones with aloe vera and arnica and coaxes Sebastian to lie back on the bed and let those bruises be soothed, as much as possible, at least.  
  
Sebastian’s still crying, he realizes. Not loudly, not making a fuss, simply letting tears fall. Chris wants to cry too—does Sebastian regret this? is he hurt? how badly is he hurt? what has Chris’s inexperience done to him?—but shoves that aside and lies down beside him on the bed, getting more or less face to face, putting a hand back on his neck, stroking his exhausted hair. “Hey.” And then he doesn’t know what to say, what to offer. Finally he just tries, “I’m here, okay? It’s fine if you need to cry, I’m not going anywhere, I’ve got you. You’re safe, you’re okay, you—you were fantastic, um, if you need me to say that. I can say that. You’re wonderful. I—thank you. You’re wonderful, thank you, God, you’re amazing, I’m here and I can hold you for as long as you want, if you want me to, I want to, I love y—I love holding you, okay?”  
  
He’s pretty sure that’s a nod. Promising, if not doing much for the stampeding fears about bruises and regret. “Okay. Um…just…whenever you can…can you maybe…tell me what hurts? How—how bad I…hurt you?”  
  
Sebastian stops crying. Goes still.  
  
“Oh fuck,” Chris says, helpless.  
  
Sebastian rolls to the side, mindful of lotion and bruises, to look at him. “Chris.”  
  
“Yeah? I’m right here. Tell me what you need.”  
  
Sebastian blinks, swallows—tears, maybe, or surprise, and half-smiles. “Chris…it hurts, yes, but…I feel good. You didn’t hurt me.” And, surprising Chris in turn, one hand finds its way up to touch Chris’s cheek, to brush a thumbtip over his cheekbone. “I feel…sort of weightless. But more anchored. Inside. Like…I don’t even know. If I ever knew. This is…”  
  
“Confusing?” Some of the claws around his heart’re beginning to relax their grip. Sebastian’s hand’s steady and warm on his face. “Not what you’re used to?”  
  
“Well.” The half-smile turns abruptly into a real one, and a laugh, astonished and bright. “Yes. But it’s a good kind of different. Maybe it’s because—”  
  
“Good?”  
  
“—because I love you,” Sebastian finishes thoughtfully, and then they both hear those words as they hit the air.  
  
The air, coconut-and-sex-drenched, holds its breath. Sebastian, very slowly, takes his hand back and puts it over his mouth. His eyes are enormous, and he tries to say from behind fingers, “Pretend I didn’t just—”  
  
“ _Fuck_ no,” Chris says, “that’s an order if you want it to be, didn’t you hear me earlier, I said it first, I love you!” and grabs his wrist and moves the ridiculous beautiful hand out of the way and kisses him.  
  
It’s pure and wild and overjoyed. It’s laughter-filled and absurd, coming on the heels of everything they’ve just done and everything they’ve been foolishly not saying for years, and Chris pulls Sebastian closer against him, bodies aligned, and whispers “I love you” into the kiss and hears and feels Sebastian say it right back. “I love you,” Chris says again, and attempts to kiss him everywhere; this is technically impossible but doesn’t stop him from trying, though he does pause at the first yelp of discomfort when Sebastian’s bruises meet the mattress. “Sorry!”  
  
“What was your phrase? Fuck no! Come back here. _Te iubesc_. I love you.”  
  
“Wait,” Chris says, nibbling Sebastian’s ear, scraping his beard across the thin skin over that collarbone to prompt the subsequent inviting squirm. “I’m supposed to be—aftercare—you were crying, and—”  
  
“I’m happy.” Sebastian loops a long leg around Chris’s waist. “I thought—I never knew I could feel like that. I’d say again, but it was never that good, even before—before. I knew it was because of you. Because I love you. And you gave me that.”  
  
“Everything.” Chris kisses his nose, his cheek, his eyebrow. “Everything. Um. You might have to show me some things. For…next time.”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says, smile brighter than the stars. “Yes. Yours, I said. Yes.”  
  
“Mine.” Chris watches him smile for a minute, content at the sight. “Want me to go downstairs? Water? Juice? Another cookie?”  
  
“You’ll have to walk past Chace. I imagine he’ll be insufferable about this…”  
  
“He’ll be happy,” Chris says, “for you,” and can’t help a certain amount of smugness. _He’s_ been the one to give Sebastian back this life. Not anyone here at the club. He’s aware that this is unfair. He’s also predisposed to be annoyed at every person who’d been so pushy about Sebastian’s choices regarding participation, earlier. And—  
  
It’s not annoyance, that last forlorn ragtag thread of feeling. It’s fear. “He’ll ask whether you’re back. Again.”  
  
Sebastian looks at him levelly for a second. “Yes, he will. And…we should talk about that.”  
  
Chris forgets to exhale. The thread unravels more. “…okay.”  
  
“Oh, Chris.” This time Sebastian kisses him first. Chris tries to smile. “You wonderful idiot,” Sebastian announces, nose to nose with Chris’s trepidation. “I love you. I’m yours. Exclusively. As long as you want me. I—”  
  
“For fucking _ever_.”  
  
“I want that too. I was thinking…we could be around more. Obviously I’m not available; you can get me a proper collar if you’d like, I think I would like that…but I _can_ help people if they need advice. I used to be good at that.” Sebastian puts his head on one side. Smiles. “I’d like to try to be good at that again. And you and I can learn some things, as well.”  
  
“Yeah,” Chris says. “Yes. You—yes.” And he knows that Sebastian knows that he understands just how much that means. Yes to Sebastian getting that piece of his world back as well. Yes to Sebastian walking around the club, turning, smiling, wearing—Chris swallows, hard—Chris’s collar, and he _has_ done reading, and he knows how much _that_ means, too. “Yes. Except, you know, not like you need to learn anything, you’re gonna be teaching me…”  
  
“It’s all new.” Sebastian tucks himself in against Chris’s chest, secure and snug. “With you. I feel new. And…you did say aftercare…”  
  
“I did oh God are you okay what do you need?”  
  
“I might be hungry,” Sebastian says.   
  
“I can completely handle that. Want me to go find you a cookie? All the cookies?”  
  
“I was thinking,” Sebastian tells him, kissing his shoulder while Chris pets his hair, “more about us going home, together. You did say you brought over lasagna. I could want lasagna.”  
  
“You…want my mother’s homemade Italian food…after our mindblowing kinky sex,” Chris says.  
  
“I love you,” Sebastian says hopefully.  
  
“Yeah,” Chris says, because yes, because this is his life, this is going to be _their_ life, family and spectacular sex and learning _everything_ together while the whole world opens up brand-new, “guess I did tell you to tell me what you want, made it an order, even, so…yeah, okay. Let’s go home, and maybe I’ll put you on your knees and feed you lasagna, and I love you.”  
  
Sebastian starts laughing partway through that final sentence, lighting up Chris’s personal world like the sun’s landed right there in the fabulous purple-hued antique bed, eyes full of unshadowed delight, and says, “Yes. To all of that, please. Yes.”


	4. happy epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a film festival, and a collar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This tiny epilogue is for [ninemoons42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42), who quite rightly observed that the motivating plot factor was Chris's film role, and so clearly that needed to come up again...

_a year or thereabouts after previous events_ :

 

Sundance. Utah. Western skies and red rocks and independent films and new releases. Chris bottles up all his nerves as best he can, standing beside the door of their hotel suite, and yells, “We’re gonna be late, hurry up!”  
  
Sebastian calls back, “Is that an order, Chris?” because Sebastian’s perfect in every conceivable way, including the one in which submission turns magically into teasing sarcasm. And then, “Also make sure you’ve got the spare hotel key!”  
  
Chris lunges for the table. Is one hundred percent certain Sebastian’s grinning from the bathroom. “Come on, your hair’s spectacular, you’re spectacular, I love you, the car’s outside!”  
  
The car is outside. The car is going to take them to the premiere of this film, the film that started it all, the film without which Chris wouldn’t have the other half of his soul. It’s a film about sex and kink and love, about closeness and intimacy and discipline and trust. It’s a good film, Chris knows it is, and the world’s going to see it.  
  
It’s a good film in part because it’s true. Because Chris knows something about bondage and discipline and whip-cracks and dominance himself, these days; because Sebastian’s kissed him and knelt at his feet and made him laugh as they took steps through it all. Because Chris knows something about love.  
  
He thinks, very privately, about a certain question. A certain piece of jewelry. He’s not quite ready to ask—both their careers’ve taken off, and they’re enormously busy, and it’s only been about a year, and while this _is_ working and the love’s unshakeable it’s just not yet the right time—but he _is_ thinking about asking. Maybe later this year. It’s January now; maybe in autumn, maybe when the leaves change from emerald to rust and gilt, when Sebastian wraps himself up in fluffy scarves and comes home with peppermint-mocha-flavored kisses and a plain black coffee for Chris, maybe when the nights get brittle and they’re holding each other for heat under the covers. Maybe he’ll look at Sebastian and smile and get out of bed and get down on one knee because he has to, right then, in the sleepy rumpled light of a lazy morning full of love.  
  
And he stands in the hotel room smiling now, card key in his hand because he’s forgotten to slip it into his pocket, and thinks: yes.  
  
And then Sebastian, proving yet again that he’s a matchless paragon of flawlessness—Chris is aware that this is technically possibly from an external perspective untrue; he’s recently witnessed Sebastian walking into doors and kitchen appliances, forgetting to put groceries away because _The Truman Show_ was on tv, and falling headlong off a film set more than once during an overly enthusiastic rehearsal, and he’s decided that all of this is unquestionably adorable—pops out of the bathroom. “Ready!”  
  
And Chris’s response dries up on his tongue.  
  
No words. None at all.  
  
Sebastian’s stunning because Sebastian’s always stunning, more instantly photogenic than Chris can ever hope to be, those cheekbones and that jawline and that awkwardly elegant slimness. Chris has never met anyone else who can simultaneously pull off clumsy-kitten preciousness and lean tailored-suit sophistication and earnest shyness and incredible enthusiasm. But that’s Sebastian, and that’s wonderful, and Chris is going to spend the rest of his life full of wonder. He’s fine with that.  
  
Right now, though, the wonder’s extremely specific. Because Sebastian, along with the slim-fit black suit and stylishly messy hair, is wearing a particular accessory. A visible accessory. An accessory they normally only pull out at an equally particular club.  
  
“You,” Chris says. “That. You. You’re wearing.”  
  
Sebastian grins. The collar happily encircles his throat, slim and black and looking like it’s made for him, which of course it had been, to Chris’s specifications. “You noticed.”  
  
“That. You. In…in public…”  
  
Sebastian’s grin turns a little hesitant. “I’m being a good boyfriend. Support for your film, and all that…they’ll think it’s a statement. And it is. But…”  
  
“But?”  
  
Sebastian glances down, takes a breath, looks back up. “I wanted to wear it. In public. I know we can’t. But tonight we maybe can. So—so I want to.”  
  
“Oh,” Chris breathes. The hotel room wraps amber light around them, kind and cozy. The sun’s setting outside, turning the sky to optimistic flame. He steps over to stand in front of apprehensive smoke-sky eyes, watching their blue-grey shift and kindle with hope.  
  
He puts a hand out. Lifts Sebastian’s chin. The evening falls quiet.  
  
He says, “You want to be mine in public. You want people to know.”  
  
“I know why we can’t,” Sebastian whispers. That’s obvious; Sebastian’s always known more about the scene, has played with the scene and gone undiscovered, for longer than Chris will ever have. “But I am yours, anyway.”  
  
“You are.” He rests his index finger over Sebastian’s lips; Sebastian kisses the finger, heartfelt and devout. “I love you. And…yes, you can wear it. For tonight. Because you’re right, we can. And I want you to.”  
  
And Sebastian’s eyes light up. Excited; given permission.  
  
Chris adds, grinning back, “But also, you didn’t ask me first, and you _know_ you didn’t, so I’m gonna tie you to the bed when we get back here and spank you until you can’t stand up, clear? I packed your cock ring, too. _And_ a gag, so you can scream if you need to.” They’ve got hand signals for precisely these circumstances. In case Sebastian ever needs to stop. He’ll ask if he does, and Chris will always listen. Promises made and kept, on both sides.  
  
Sebastian kisses his finger again, smiling like he’s finally found everything he might’ve ever once dreamed of or hoped for, smiling like the answer to Chris’s dreams and hopes too, and says, “Yes, Chris.”


End file.
